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SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND 
CAMPFIRES 




SPARKS = 

FROM A THOUSAND 

■ CAMPFIRES 

DAYS AND NIGHTS WITH THE 
FUR TRADERS...MERLIN M. AMES 


WEBSTER PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1 808 WASHINGTON AVENUE • ST. LOUIS MISSOURI 


i °i 3"r 










Copyright, 1937, by Webster Publishing Company. 
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce 
any part in any form. 



JUL 2»i 1937 


®ClJi 107756 





CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Winter Gold 

Winter Gold. 3 

On the Threshold 

The Iroquois Ambush. 15 

The White Mohawk. 30 

The Cabin on the Shore. 43 

The Snowy Moons. 70 

Pierre Radisson's Revenge. 88 

In the Land of Many Waters 

Kiala’s Sacrifice. 101 

The Dream of Wauwatam. 118 

The Prince of the Fur Merchants. 141 

The Barrel of Gunpowder. 160 

Among the Shining Mountains 

A Prairie Marathon. 183 

A Knight in Buckskin . 200 

The Night Raiders . 218 

Whitehead Tom. 235 

The Test of the Trail. 248 

On the River of the West 

The Slave of Friendly Cove. 265 

The Overlanders . 276 

The Vengeance of the Tonquin . 287 

The Silver Forest 

The Silver Forest 305 

Glossary . 317 























WINTER GOLD 






WINTER GOLD 


HIS new, strange America held many surprises for 



-*■ the white men and women who first came here to 
make their homes. Here they found the Indians, a strange 
race of people. There were new trees, new flowers, new 
beasts and birds and fish. Even the climate had some new 
and startling qualities. 

Seldom had the people who came from western 
Europe—the French, the Dutch, the English—known 
such burning heat as they experienced in the American 
summer. Few indeed were they who had knowledge of 
such long, snowy, biting winters as those of much of our 
continent. The new wilderness home of our forefathers 
stretched away to the west and north almost endlessly. 
There were high, cool plateaus. Hundreds of thousands 
of square miles of forest and stream lay locked for many 
months of the year under snow and ice. To the north 
spread a region whose farthest edge lay forever in the 
grip of winter. To the first colonists the American winter 
seemed a cruel, menacing season. 

But the harsh season had its redeeming features. Liv¬ 
ing in this wilderness kingdom were millions of fur¬ 
bearing animals. They swam in the cold water, prowled 


3 










4 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

about the icy margins of the lakes, and built their houses 
snug and warm against the coming of the great cold. 
Dame Nature well knew how to meet and turn back the 
chill of icy waters or the sting of wintry winds. With 
the shortening of the autumn days that heralded the 
coming of winter, the coats of the fur bearers thickened 
and deepened until the texture was glossy and lustrous, 
soft to the touch and beautiful to the eye. King Winter 
made of the North American wilderness a treasure- 
house of fur. “Winter Gold!” 

It was not long before the adventurous ones among the 
early settlers saw in the peltries of forest and stream a 
chance for quick, sure profits for themselves. They knew 
that in Europe there was always a demand for fur: fur 
of ermine for robes of state, fur of fox or sable or mink 
for the garments of great ladies, fur of beaver for the 
hats of gentlemen. With traps, and with the trade goods 
that would coax rich peltries from the red hunter, they 
set their feet on the dim westward trails. 

What a mixed population of fur bearers that wilder¬ 
ness America held! Far in the icy north ranged the deli¬ 
cate little arctic fox. He was sprightly and brave in his 
cold dark home. Now and then, born in the same litter 
with the white arctic foxes would be a blue one. His pelt 
was a prize for any trapper. Farther south were to be 
found the red foxes and their brothers of the much- 
sought coats, the gray and silver foxes. 

Along the banks of clear northern rivers dwelt the 
slender, dusky-brown otter, his sleek, seal-like coat al¬ 
ways in great demand. But he was sly and quick to sense 
danger. Only the cleverest of trappers was able to catch 
him. He and his fellows still cling to their old river 


WINTER GOLD 


5 


homes, and, when all is safe, go gayly down their “slides” 
to plop into some deep hole. Far away on the Pacific coast 
lived a cousin of the otter, known as the sea otter. His 
coat was almost black, with long, white-tipped hairs 
standing out from the glossy fur beneath. When the 
trappers at last invaded his far-off home the sea otter 
fell an easy victim to the trap, the spear, and the rifle. 

Then there was the crafty, savage little mink, at home 
in the water or on the land, forever prowling about, ready 
to fight and to kill on a moment’s notice. All corners of 
the great wilderness knew him. His slim little body car¬ 
ried a coat of soft, rich brown fur. 

Far back in the thick forest lived the marten, or 
American sable. The winter snow and ice gave him a 
coat of beautiful brown fur, sought eagerly in the mar¬ 
kets by people of wealth. But he was shy and shrewd, and 
oftener than not his sleek coat stayed where nature had 
put it, and some grand lady went without. 

Many other fur bearers roamed the new country. Some 
of these suffered little at the hands of trappers until their 
neighbors of the richer pelts were hard to find. In this 
group belonged the muskrat, the skunk, and the raccoon. 

Other animals, often larger ones, had hides of value 
even though their hairy coats were worthless. In time 
these, too, were eagerly sought by the white men. 

But after all, the “winter gold” of America was chiefly 
to be found on the backs of those round, fat, clever little 
engineers, the beavers. In the eyes of the white trader 
and trapper the beaver was the king of the fur bearers. 
The trails blazed by the white fur merchants and their 
Indian helpers were those that led always toward the 
haunts of the beaver. 


6 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


There were few places in wilderness America where 
beavers could not be found. To make them content they 
needed only trees and running water. They were town 
dwellers; they lived with their fellow beavers in villages. 



Almost everything they did was done in cooperation with 
their neighbors. 

When a new beaver town was to be laid out, the first 
“public improvement’' was a dam. Always the beaver 
engineers selected the place for this dam with all the 
foresight a trained man engineer would show. The dams 
were built of sticks, stones, and mud. Back of the dams 
































WINTER GOLD 


7 


ponds formed, often long and fairly deep. Around the 
edges of a pond the pairs of beavers built their stick-and- 
mud houses, the doorways being reached from the pond 
by an under-water passage. 

Beaver dams served several purposes. They kept the 
water around the houses at a fairly constant level. The 
ponds they made were safe retreats for the beavers, who 
are expert swimmers and divers; and they served as 
storehouses for food. Bark and twigs make up a great 
part of the food of beavers. They store their ponds, when 
winter approaches, with a mass of small logs, branches, 
and tree tops, weighted down to the bottom with stones 
and mud. When the cold weather coats the ponds over 
with a solid layer of ice, the beavers swim about below 
and, unmolested, take their meals. 

It was often necessary, of course, for colonies of beav¬ 
ers to get along without the comforts of dams and ponds. 
But if thickets of trees and water were at hand, the 
shrewd little fellows managed to prosper in spite of the 
shortcomings of their home. 

The beaver shows so much intelligence that members 
of some Indian tribes were inclined to treat him with 
great reverence. White men, too, who have come to know 
the beaver well, respect him. Some of these observers 
have told amazing stories of how the members of some 
beaver village have seemed to reason their way out of a 
difficulty. 

One old woodsman relates this: 

“One time I got pretty well acquainted with a colony of 
beavers. I was watching some lumber camps for a con¬ 
cern up in northern Minnesota that year. A trail I had 
to take almost every day led me along the edge of quite a 


8 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

good-sized beaver pond. After a while the beavers got 
used to me, and wouldn’t slap a warning on the water 
with them flat tails of theirs when they saw me. They 
went on about their business. 

“It was an awful dry summer. When fall came forest 
fires started up. My camps were in a big clearing and 
escaped the fire that came that way. But it swept along 
that beaver pond, and when it had gone not a living tree 
or bush was left. 

“Now there was a problem for Mr. Beaver and his 
friends. It was time for them to lay in their supply of 
food for winter. But the food was burned up. It was 
getting pretty late for the beavers to move to another 
place and build a new dam and wait for the pond to 
form and then gnaw down and drag to that pond enough 
logs and branches to furnish the colony with its food for 
the winter. What would the beavers do? I watched to 
see. 

“Well, sir, up along the swamp beyond the beaver pond 
there was an 'island’ of nice green poplars missed by the 
fire. The beavers saw it. It was two-three hundred yards 
from the pond, but no matter: the beavers decided it 
offered the best chance to keep the village from starva¬ 
tion that next winter. Everybody went to work—and 
how they worked! Some started in cutting down them 
poplars with their strong teeth, and then cutting the trees 
up into shorter lengths. But most of the beavers started 
on the job of digging a canal from the poplar grove to 
the beaver pond. They knew they were too short legged 
and clumsy to move them heavy green logs across the 
land. But in the water—that was different. 

“I looked at that canal every day. I never got over be- 


WINTER GOLD 


9 


ing surprised at how fast it grew and deepened. You 
would have thought that a crew of twenty men was at 
work there. 

“Well, anyway, before the first hard freeze came, that 
grove had been cut down, branches and trunks cut into 
shorter lengths, the whole carried down the canal and 
weighted down to the bottom of the pond. I guess them 
beavers passed a nice, comfortable winter. Leastways 
they looked sleek and cheerful when spring came.” 

A man from the Rocky Mountain region tells this 
story: 

“Are beavers smart? Let me tell you what I saw one 
time. In a low valley where I used to prospect there was 
a beaver pond. One spring there was a cloudburst up the 
stream, and the rocks that came crashing down the valley 
destroyed the beaver dam, smashed and buried every tree 
and bush, and left nothing but a mass of driftwood, 
rocks, and gravel. I suppose some of the beavers were 
killed, too. 

“That valley was no place for beavers to live in after 
that flood. The beavers knew it. They started off over a 
ridge to find a new home in some other creek bottom. I 
got interested in my little neighbors and checked up on 
their line of march now and then. 

“Well, they found a valley with a nice creek running 
along it, but no place for the new home they wanted to 
build. Other beaver colonies were ahead of them in all 
the good places. So they marched on up that creek, up 
over rocky places and around falls and across stretches of 
sand and gravel. At last, in a little valley which narrowed 
down toward its lower end, and which had plenty of cot¬ 
tonwoods and aspens growing near, the wanderers de- 


10 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

cided they had found what they were looking for. The 
spot was far up toward the summits of the mountains ; 
I suppose that's the reason no other beavers had settled 
there. I came along one day just in time to see the begin¬ 
nings of the new dam. 

“Late that same fall I was hunting in that valley. I 
had followed a deer track up to near where my old 
friends had started their town. I lost the track, so de¬ 
cided to walk over and say 'hello' to the beavers. There 
at the lower end of the little valley I saw the highest 
beaver dam I ever saw in my life. It had back of it a pond 
at least twice as deep as the one in the old village of these 
beavers. 

“Now, as I've already said, this dam and pond were far 
up in the mountains—farther up than any others I ever 
saw or heard of, probably eight thousand feet above sea 
level. That elevation meant very cold weather in the win¬ 
ter time. That meant very deep ice on that pond. That 
meant—if the beavers were to swim around underneath 
to get at their food—a deep pond. And that meant build 
a high dam. 

“Can beavers reason things out? Well, what do you 
think?" 

Yes, the beaver was king of the fur bearers. He and 
his kind lived in scattered villages over a land as big as 
all of Europe. For two hundred years there was a steady, 
eager demand for his pelt. All along the edge of the 
wilderness the beaver skin passed for money, fixing the 
value of other peltries and other wares. 

The small fur traders quarreled with one another over 
their fur business; the great companies schemed and 
struggled to control the routes over which the fur of 


WINTER GOLD 


11 


the beaver reached the markets. Frenchmen, Dutchmen, 
Englishmen, and Russians argued and fought for a share 
in the harvest of beaver skins. 

The hunt for new, fresh beaver lands made known to 
the world a good share of our continent. The canoes of 
the traders carried the first white men down hundreds of 
our rivers and across scores of our lakes. It was the 
beaver that led the first white men to the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains, and across by land to the Pacific Ocean. It was 
the fur traders who put much of the detail into the out¬ 
line map of North America. Their adventurous wander¬ 
ings were marked by the thousand campfires they built 
along the way. 


Questions on the Story 

1. What does the expression, “winter gold,” mean? 

2. What are the names of five of the most important fur bearers 
in America? Can you tell something about the habits of each? 

3. How did the search for fur help to make America known 
to white people? 

Things to Think About 

1. Can you recall anything that animals, your pets, perhaps, 
have done which seems to prove that they can reason ? 

2. What do you think about the ability of the beavers to reason 
things out? 

3. Why were the fur-bearing animals so important to the early 
colonists ? 

Things to Do 

1. Give a talk on “My Visit to a Beaver Colony.” 

2. Look up pictures of some of the fur bearers. Try drawing 
some pictures yourself. Perhaps you could decorate a language 
composition with them. 

3. Look up an account of how the beavers build their dams. 

























































































* % 

































































































OUST THE THRESHOLD 





THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 


T>UT, Medart, what a small, rough-looking town your 
Montreal is. I had thought to find—” 

Pierre Radisson was given no chance to tell what he 
expected to find at Montreal. His brother-in-law, Medart 
Groseilliers broke in: “Find what, my Pierre? Another 
Paris here in the wilderness? Remember, the colony is 
but fifty years old, and Montreal but half of that.” 

The nights are often cool along the St. Lawrence River, 
even in late summertime. A log fire crackled in the fire¬ 
place that almost filled one end of the small cabin of 
Medart Groseilliers. On benches before the fire sat 
Medart, his wife, Marguerite, and her brother, Pierre 
Radisson. Pierre, seventeen, had arrived on a ship that 
very day from France. He had come to make his home in 
the new colony of his king, Louis XIII. How exciting it 
had been to scramble off that slow old vessel to the log 
wharf of Montreal. Still more exciting and joyful had 
been Pierre’s meeting with his sister, whom he had not 
seen for years, and Medart, his brother-in-law, whom he 
had never seen before—Marguerite looking so young 
and girlish; Medart so brave and frank and honest. 

15 




16 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

All the way up between the narrowing banks of the St. 
Lawrence, Pierre Radisson’s interest in his new home 
had grown keen. As the wooded shores of the great 
river drew closer to the ship, he had thrilled at the sights 
about him. Several times great moose had been surprised 
in the shallows along the shore, and Pierre had excitedly 
watched the ungainly animals go lumbering off into the 
woods. Two villages of those “wild men” he had heard 
so much about had been sighted on the shore, and each 
time copper-hued paddlers had brought their canoes 
skimming out across the water to the ship’s side. Pierre 
had gazed down, fascinated, at the grim, proud-looking 
canoemen. 

Then, too, the dark forest which stretched endlessly 
along either shore of the river, the bold, rocky head¬ 
lands, the flashing streams that came tumbling down into 
the great river—all these things had sent an odd thrill up 
and down the spine of Pierre Radisson. Here at last, 
here was the great new land, America. Here, around him, 
was the new colonial empire of France. Pierre loved it 
all, loved it at first sight. 

“Tell, me, Medart, about these wild men, these red 
Indians.” As the three sat before the fire in the little 
Groseilliers cabin that first night, Pierre was full of 
questions. “Are they cruel and treacherous? Can they 
be controlled and kept in their place by the few French¬ 
men who are here?” 

“I wish I could answer those questions,” soberly re¬ 
plied Medart. “Then I could tell you whether this New 
France is to be a success. True, we white men are few 
here, as yet. But the Indians boast no great numbers 
themselves. Those along the river here and back into the 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 


17 


western country as far as our explorers have gone are 
friendly. When you go out about the town tomorrow you 
will see a few of them. They seem only anxious to please 
the whites.” 

"But, brother Medart,” queried Pierre, "have I not 
heard of fighting between our men and the Indians? 
Have I not heard a report that danger and death lurk 
on the footsteps of any Frenchman who dares leave the 
few scattered little towns and forts?” 

"Yes, what you have heard is true,” Medart answered. 
"There are great tribes of these Indians dwelling off to 
the southward who hate us Frenchmen. At times their 
war parties have lurked about here and have pounced 
upon unwary settlers. Alone, we French colonists could 
scarcely defend ourselves against the warlike tribes. 
That is why our rulers here must keep the friendship of 
these Indians living nearby. They can help us in the 
defense of what we now possess along this river. But 
they can do more: they can lead us along routes west¬ 
ward to warmer, richer lands than these, and they can 
help keep those routes open for us. Some of our explorers 
and missionaries have had a peep at this new country. 
The real New France must be built there; the river here 
will be but its outlet. All this have I heard from a soldier 
who is a friend of mine; he heard two of our leaders 
talking one day at the fort.” 

Marguerite yawned a little and laughed. "You two 
trouble your heads with matters which concern only the 
great ones of the colony. It grows late; Pierre, you, at 
least, should be ready for sleep; and, my Medart, how 
will it be to allow Pierre to begin tomorrow to find out 
for himself what Montreal and New France are like?” 


18 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Two months slipped by—interesting ones for Pierre 
Radisson. He saw that Montreal was, indeed, more of 
a promise of greater-things-to-be than an important 
place at the moment A few soldiers were in the log fort, 
and a number of traders in their small warehouses down 
along the shore of the river. A few important men were 
establishing estates down the river, with poor French 
farmers as their tenants. “Habitants/’ these were called. 
The point of greatest interest and life, Pierre soon 
learned, was along a gravel beach just beyond the line 
of log-cabin houses which made up the residence part 
of Montreal. Near this beach was an Indian camp, made 
up largely of Ottawas from the west. They had come 
down the river earlier with their furs and were fishing 
and idling about the white man’s town during the sum¬ 
mer months. The bark-covered wigwams of the Ottawas, 
their gay blankets and ornaments, and their constant 
going and coming in their graceful birch canoes saved 
the drab little town, in Pierre’s eyes, from being dull and 
uninteresting. 

“You wait,” cried the loyal Medart, “until next spring 
comes. When all those western Indians come swarming 
down the river with their bales of beaver and mink and 
otter skins, then you will agree that Montreal is a lively 
and important town.” 

One October morning Pierre rolled hurriedly from his 
bunk. It was still dark, but daylight comes late on the 
St. Lawrence in October. Pierre had important business 
that day—he was going hunting with two other boys. 

When Pierre lighted a candle and swung the meat 
kettle over the blaze he had stirred up in the fireplace, it 
was plain to be seen that his two months in the new land 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 19 

had greatly changed him. He was tall and straight and 
brown, and his dark eyes looked clear and alert. When 
he got into his outer garments, the change in Pierre was 
greater still. He might have passed for a young Indian: 
fur cap, with a mink’s tail dangling behind, fringed buck¬ 
skin shirt, buckskin leggings and moccasins. 

The hunt that day led the three boys up along the 
margin of the river. They were out for ducks and geese. 
The wild rice beds were alive with the birds, resting and 
feeding before resuming their long southward migration. 
The air was filled with the whir of wings, the quacking 
of the ducks, the “honks” of the great Canada geese. 
Pierre and his companions were lured on and on. The 
game bags grew heavy. At last the boys turned toward 
home. 

Not until the sun sank, with not even the flag at the 
fort in Montreal showing, did Pierre and his friends 
realize how far the hunt had carried them. They were 
tired. Those geese and ducks grew heavier with each step. 
“Remember, Pierre,” Medart had called from the cabin 
door that morning, “you should be back here well before 
sunset. It is unsafe to be out after nightfall.” That warn¬ 
ing must have been in the thoughts of the boys, for, 
when a sudden puff of wind stirred the stiff rice stalks, 
they drew quickly together and stopped. Pierre laughed 
and started on, with the others close at his heels. 

How could Pierre and his companions know that 
around the next bend of the river a score of war canoes 
were drawn up on the sand, that in the thicket they were 
approaching fifty Indians lay concealed, their eyes 
gleaming with excitement in their painted faces as they 
watched the approaching boys? 


20 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Suddenly the young hunters were frozen in their 
tracks by a wild, quavering yell, the signal for the rush. 
As in a nightmare they stood rooted to the spot as they 
watched the half-hundred painted warriors bear down 
upon them. 

“Iroquois screamed one of Pierre's companions, as 
he turned and started to run back along the river bank. 
It was too late. The charging Indians hemmed them in. 

Pierre remembered afterward that at the last moment 
he had used his gun as a club, aiming a blow at the head 
of the nearest Indian. The warrior had ducked. The next 
instant, as Pierre recalled the events of those exciting 
minutes, a bronze shoulder had all but knocked the breath 
from his body. As he fell back something had suddenly 
set off a million lightning flashes in his brain. After that 
his mind was a blank. 

When Pierre Radisson next opened his eyes his world 
seemed to consist of a single star that gleamed coldly 
above him. He moved his head slightly and saw more 
stars. Where was he? Had a great wind come and blown 
the roof off Medart’s cabin, that he, Pierre, could thus 
lie in his bed and look up at the heavens? Vaguely, at 
first, he felt something prodding against his ribs. He put 
down a hand to find out what it was. A moccasined foot! 
The prods became more vigorous. Pierre sat up to avoid 
them. How his head throbbed! 

Now at last Pierre knew the truth. He was not in his 
bed; he was sitting on the wet sand holding his thump¬ 
ing head between his hands. A torch, held by a muscular 
hand, lighted up a circle of grim, painted faces, while 
beady eyes gazed down at him with a mixture of hatred 
and curiosity. Pierre sensed at once that his two com¬ 
panions were dead. 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 21 

A few minutes later the canoes of the raiding Iroquois 
slipped away into the night. Pierre Radisson, securely 
bound, lay in the bottom of one of them. 

“A captive of the Iroquois!” muttered Pierre to him¬ 
self. “The Indians Medart spoke of, the first night I spent 
in Montreal, and about whose hatred I have heard so 
much since then. Why do they make a prisoner of me 
while they make a quick end of Jean and Paul? Am I 
spared now that I may make sport for Iroquois women 
and children when I die slowly at the stake in some In¬ 
dian village ?” 

As Pierre’s prison-canoe swished through the rapid 
current of the St. Lawrence, he tried vainly to find an 
answer to these questions. 

No one could live in the Canada of those days for two 
months without hearing much about these terrible 
southern tribesmen and their enmity toward Frenchmen. 
The great Champlain, you would be told, had started 
this flame of hate in the early days of the colony by 
marching against these haughty warriors at the head of 
a force of their enemies. Since that day they had taken 
up trade with the Dutch, in their Fort Orange on the 
Hudson River. This trade was displacing the bow and 
arrow and the war club of the Iroquois fighting man with 
the gun, powder, and ball of the white man. What would 
happen to the red friends of France if these Iroquoian 
enemies swept upon them armed with the new and deadly 
weapon? Would the tribesmen be able to carry out the 
plan they had decided on and force the fur harvest of 
all the western country through Iroquoian hands down to 
the Dutch at Fort Orange? Truly, here was matter for 
worry for the king of France, himself. For, without the 
fur trade, what was there in all Canada even to begin to 


22 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

make that cold north country pay back the costs of its 
colonization ? 

All these matters had Pierre Radisson heard discussed 
during his weeks at Montreal. He had listened to tales 
of Iroquoian fierceness in battle, and of Iroquoian cruelty 
to prisoners. Outnumbered by the hostile tribes around 
them, they yet were more than a match, so Pierre had 
been assured, for all their enemies. Iroquois! That name 
was more than enough to send a prickle of fear up and 
down the spines of Frenchmen who dwelt in the Canada 
of those days. 

Ten days after the ambush on the reedy banks of the 
St. Lawrence, the Iroquois war party, treading silently 
their westward trail, approached an important village 
of their nation. Single file they marched along a dim, 
winding path through heavy forest. Half way along the 
line was Pierre, foot-free, but with his arms bound be¬ 
hind him. 

In after years Pierre had only a confused memory of 
that ten-day journey. Each day, for five or six days, he 
remembered that he had lain face up, bound, in the bot¬ 
tom of a canoe as it glided swiftly southward. Each 
night, for as many nights, with muscles cramped and 
limbs aching, he had been dragged ashore by his captors 
and had been bound, sitting, to a tree. From here he had 
watched the warriors gulp down their meal of parched 
corn, with now and then the added delicacy of a fresh- 
caught fish grilled over the fire on a frame of green 
sticks. Pierre was tossed the remnants of these meals, 
after which he was regularly stretched out on his back 
with his wrists and ankles bound to stakes driven into 
the ground. 

'Truly/' thought Pierre, each time this operation was 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 


23 


gone through with, “these rascals stretch me out as 
though they fear I will shrink during the night. I am 
pegged out like a beaver skin to dry.” 

When the war chief had thrown a robe over the 
prisoner, he was left to himself for the night. The In¬ 
dians rolled up in their own robes, feet to the fire, and 
slept like the dead till dawn. Thirty minutes after the 
camp had roused, the canoes were again headed south¬ 
ward. 

Five or six days and nights of this, as nearly as Pierre 
could remember; then the canoes were lifted from the 
water at a place the red men seemed to know well. Pierre 
guessed that they were on Champlain’s Lake, somewhere 
near its southern end. He had seen rough maps of the 
region and had learned that the canoe route of the Iro¬ 
quois war parties led off in this general direction. 

After the canoes had been hidden and the packs, made 
up, the chief led the way westward along a forest trail. 
Pierre stood the swift march through the woods surpris¬ 
ingly well. But the grim warriors, however much they 
may have secretly admired the pluck and endurance of 
their prisoner, never by look or gesture showed the least 
hint of kindliness toward him. Each night the thongs 
about his wrists and ankles were drawn mercilessly 
tight. Each day he was forced along the trail in the midst 
of the hurrying Indians, many a brutal shove or kick 
being aimed at him if he so much as faltered on the 
march. 

“Surely, I am destined for torture in the village of 
these people,” thought Pierre, despairingly. “No men, no 
matter how cruel, could treat me as harshly as these have 
treated me and plan aught else for me.” 

Toward the end of the fifth day’s march the forest 


24 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

began to thin and the trail to broaden. At once the 
warriors dropped their grim silence and began to jabber 
and shout. Through the thinning screen of trees an In¬ 
dian village could be seen. The people there, hearing the 
returning warriors, dropped whatever they had been 
about and came storming out toward the advancing war 
party. Their yells and shrieks were deafening. It was with 
difficulty that the war chief silenced them long enough to 
give his brief account of the success of the raid. He 
pointed to Pierre. Then the storm broke in earnest. Wild¬ 
eyed Indian women, their faces working with passion, 
surged upon the men surrounding the prisoner, hurled 
sticks and stones at him, tried to get at him with their 
claw-like fingers. But only for a moment did the warriors 
stand by and allow this baiting of the prisoner. They 
drove the women and children back and marched steadily 
forward toward the center of the village, keeping Pierre 
in their midst. 

The French boy, frightened as he must have been, 
nevertheless noted carefully the main features of this 
first Iroquois village he had ever seen. He was surprised 
at the well-built and permanent-looking houses, so differ¬ 
ent from the flimsy wigwams of the Ottawas. In the 
clearing beyond the houses he caught glimpses of yellow¬ 
ing cornstalks still standing, with withered vines trailing 
between that looked much like melon or squash vines. 

Near the center of the village was a large, roughly 
circular building, the council house of the tribe. Pierre 
was pushed in through its doorway. Here, in the gather¬ 
ing darkness, his weariness and his fears for the coming 
day swept over him like a black wave. He sank moaning 
to the ground, to sleep, finally, as only a very tired boy 
can sleep. 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 


25 


The shrill voices of the Indian women and the excited 
shouts of their children recalled to Pierre Radisson’s 
foggy mind, next morning, what his situation was. 
Shortly after a piece of roast venison had been brought 
in to him for breakfast, the Indian men of the village 
began entering the council house. Pierre watched with 
interest as the warriors arranged themselves in a solemn 
circle. He noted the set, expressionless faces, the dull 
black eyes, the handsome robes they drew close about 
their shoulders to keep out the early morning chill. They 
displayed not the slightest interest in their prisoner. 

After a heavy stone pipe had passed once around the 
circle, a grizzled old fellow, evidently the chief, rose to 
speak. After a few slow, measured words the speaker 
again seated himself. Two or three other warriors also 
made brief speeches. 

Pierre, thrilled by the novel scene, looked on from his 
dark corner. “What dignity and seriousness I see here,” 
thought he. “What great matter concerns these people 
now, I wonder? A question of peace or war, surely; they 
are all so solemn.” 

Then, suddenly it dawned on Pierre that the Indian 
orators were talking about him. The Indians in the circle 
facing him now allowed themselves the pleasure of giv¬ 
ing the prisoner a curious stare. The mask-like faces all 
about the circle began to show signs of increasing ex¬ 
citement. The chief rose again to speak. This time he 
used arms and hands for expressive gestures. 

Pierre, listening more intently now, fancied the old 
chief’s speech to run about like this: “Our brave warriors 
have returned from the shore of the great northern river 
where dwell those hated palefaces, our enemies. Our 
braves have won a great victory. You have seen the 


26 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

scalps they brought back with them. The people in the 
log fort near the great hill are frightened. They will not 
dare to leave it for fear of our war parties. They will at 
last grow hungry and then they will go away in those 
great canoes of theirs. It is good. Now here is one of 
those white-faced strangers. Our warriors»have brought 
him back alive to us. He must die, of course. But how, 
and when?” 

Pierre’s imaginings were cut short. The chief had 
ceased speaking. Several of the men in the circle were 
muttering excitedly to one another. One of them shouted 
out a word which was caught up by a dozen others. The 
chief arose and bellowed a direction. Amid wide-faced 
grins and grunts of satisfaction the council broke up. 

Pierre was not left long in doubt of what it all meant. 
He was led outside the council house, his appearance be¬ 
ing the signal for a chorus of yells and screams from the 
squaws and younger members of the tribe. Pierre could 
see these scurrying about, arming themselves with stout 
clubs and thorny tree branches. 

There was much confusion and milling about. The 
braves shouted themselves hoarse trying to reduce the 
excited throng to some semblance of order. At last the 
half-grown boys and girls and the women—who might 
have ranged in age between eighteen and a hundred— 
were drawn up in two lines facing each other and reach¬ 
ing from the doorway of the council house to a point per¬ 
haps a hundred yards distant. 

Pierre viewed this ugly-looking double line with a 
sinking heart. He knew what it meant. It was the gant¬ 
let, that savage sport sometimes indulged in by the In¬ 
dians when they had a prisoner. 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 


27 


Two warriors now seized Pierre and stripped off his 
clothes to the waist. They led him down to the far end 
of the twofold line of torture. Behind the women and 
children, who by this time had worked themselves into 
a frenzy, were massed the warriors, standing with folded 
arms and looking on tolerantly, but preparing to take 
no part in the wild game about to be staged. 

Pierre was now faced about. His heart pounded furi¬ 
ously in his bare breast. He fought hard against a weak, 
giddy feeling. Then with an effort he threw back his 
shoulders, raised his head, and looked as bold and defiant 
as he was able. He saw that he was facing down an 
irregular lane of dark human forms. At the farther end 
of the lane was the doorway of the council house. 

Now the two braves were making gestures in the 
direction of that doorway and chattering excitedly to 
their captive. They acted almost friendly in their effort 
to make Pierre understand. Then in a flash he caught 
their meaning: “Run, white boy! If you can keep your 
feet and make the council house you are safe. Run, now!” 

More grunts, a sudden push from behind, and Pierre 
was off on a mad dash down between those two rows of 
wildly brandishing clubs. The gantlet! What a race for 
life that was. 

Pierre was a strong boy and a good runner. He dodged 
and side-stepped and twisted like a halfback carrying the 
ball. Many of the blows aimed at him swished through 
empty space. He threw up his arms and warded off others 
that would have come near killing him then and there if 
they had landed squarely. But even Pierre’s nimble legs 
and strong arms could not save him from the storm of 
blows aimed at him. 


28 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Thud! came a blow on his shoulder. A young, strong 
squaw squealed with delight as Pierre, with that shoulder 
full of darting pain, reeled from her blow. He staggered 
on. Smash! and a jagged tree branch came slanting in 
to rip a great patch of skin from the runner’s cheek. Jab! 
and the end of a stout pole, darting in below his guarding 
arms, all but knocked the breath from his body. 

Panting, bleeding, Pierre somehow kept his feet and 
kept them moving down that terrible lane. Where was 
that council house? Hadn’t he run miles already? Noth¬ 
ing but swinging clubs—a whole world of them! He 
couldn’t make it. Nobody could live through such a storm. 

And then—all at once—there was the doorway, just a 
little way ahead now. Pierre’s courage flared again. But 
between the runner and the doorway waved a great, 
thorny cudgel in the hands of a big, screaming squaw, 
wild with the thought that to her was given the great 
privilege of delivering the final blow to the hated pale¬ 
face. Up soared the club in a great arc. In a split second 
it would come smashing down on Pierre’s head. And 
then the flying French boy swerved suddenly from his 
path and, in a sudden, blind fury, threw himself straight 
at the astonished squaw. Smack! Pierre landed squarely, 
and down went the copper-hued woman in a sprawling 
heap, while Pierre wriggled and squirmed his way in 
through the council-house door to safety. Safety until 
the warriors thought of some new ordeal or some fresh 
torture! 

Pierre lay on the dirt floor of the council house and 
struggled for breath. Outside he heard roars of laughter 
going up from the braves at the comic ending of the 
prisoner’s race for life. Something in that laughter told 


THE IROQUOIS AMBUSH 


29 


Pierre that his final charge had won him friends among 
those fierce warriors out there, and perhaps had made 
his future a shade more hopeful than it had been at any 
moment since his captivity had begun. 

Questions on the Story 

1. Why did Pierre Radisson find his new home so interesting? 

2. Why had the Iroquois Indians become so angry at the 
Frenchmen? 

3. How was Pierre treated by his captors on the long journey 
to their village? 

4. Can you explain what “running the gantlet” means ? 

Things to Think About 

1. This story illustrates a number of things that were true of 
all Indians. How long a list of these can you make ? 

2. Can you see that there were some good points, and also 
some bad ones, about the St. Lawrence River country as a place 
for a colony? 

Things to Do 

1. Look up a good account of the experiences of Champlain. 
Report to the class. 

2. Try to draw a map that will help to make this story clear. 
Put a red line on your map to show the route taken by the Iro¬ 
quois war party. 

3. Construct from paper, or draw, a birch canoe. Decorate it 
as you think the Indians did theirs. 

4. Find out what you can about Montreal; Lake Champlain. 





THE WHITE MOHAWK 


HE day after the running of the gantlet, the Iro- 



quoian warriors came stalking a second time into the 
council house. Again they seated themselves silently in a 
circle. Again the pipe went round. Poor, battered Pierre 
Radisson was there, of course. It was not difficult for 
him to understand, this time, that he and his fate were 
to be the subject of the deliberations. As he gazed about 
at the stern faces, his heart sank. He could see in them no 
hint of pity. 

The prisoner watched keenly the solemn proceedings 
and listened intently to the Indian oratory. He tried 
vainly to read into each gesture, into each change in the 
pitch or quality of the voices of the speakers, some 
message of hope for himself. 

But a change came over the character of the council 
in the course of a speech made by a middle-aged, kindly- 
appearing warrior. Here was a speaker who talked on a 
matter close to his heart—not merely to hear himself 
talk, as Pierre felt was the case with some of the others. 
As this man talked the faces in the circle began to look 
like human faces, not mere wooden masks. At the end 
the speaker pointed at Pierre in his corner, then quietly 
seated himself and folded his robe about him amid a 
chorus of approving grunts from his listeners. 


30 




THE WHITE MOHAWK 


31 


“What may all this mean?” wondered Pierre. “Surely, 
my fate is somehow bound up in this man’s words. I can 
see it in the faces of my captors. But what is it to be ?” 

The chief had been watching and listening keenly, too. 
He now stood up and in a brief speech dismissed the 
council. “How! How!” echoed through the council house, 
and the warriors went out grinning their hearty assent 
to all that had passed. Some of the broad grins were 
turned upon Pierre, and more than one pair of friendly 
eyes glanced in his direction. 

Pierre Radisson was surprised at the sudden turn 
affairs had taken in the council. He was delighted with 
this quick show of friendliness on the part of the Indians. 
But he was completely in the dark as to the real cause of 
it all. 

“What has happened? Can it be possible that these 
red men, who now look at me in so friendly a way, are 
the same men who kept that sour silence on the long trail 
from Montreal, and who meted out to me that cruel 
treatment on the march?” Pierre wondered. The thought 
came to him, dimly, that perhaps, after all, even these 
Iroquois were not entirely evil; that each was in reality 
two separate Indians—the warrior and the home-loving 
man. 

The miracle was this: the last speaker in the council 
had begged to be allowed to adopt Pierre as his son, in 
place of the boy he had lost in battle a few months before. 
His plea had been granted. The brave young paleface was 
to become a member of the tribe. 

Slowly a part of all this dawned on Pierre as he was 
being led out into the sunlight and down to one of the 
“long houses” where the Iroquois families lived. A 


32 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

gentle-faced Indian woman, Pierre’s new mother, took 
him in hand, bathed his many bruises, and made up a 
deep, warm bed of robes for him in a quiet corner of 
her section of the “long house.” 

“So,” thought Pierre, as he was drifting off into a 
sleep that would last a day and a night, “this is the end 
of the story. Well, I am alive, at any rate, and this old 
Indian woman has already made my welts and bruises 
less painful. As to the future, who can read that, here, 
or in Montreal, or even in France?” 

By the time spring had come back to the north country, 
it is more than likely that neither you nor I could have 
told which was Pierre Radisson among all the tall young 
braves of the Iroquois village. His black hair—not quite 
so coarse and straight as a true Indian’s, to be sure— 
was dressed in the Indian fashion, the scalp-lock standing 
straight up. Campfire smoke and early spring sunshine 
had combined to tan his face to the correct coppery In¬ 
dian hue. He wore fringed buckskin shirt and leggings, 
the skins having been tanned almost white by his Indian 
mother. His well-fitted moccasins were decorated with 
dyed porcupine quills, worked into an odd pattern over 
the instep. More than this, Pierre had grown an inch or 
so taller and several pounds heavier since his arrival in 
Iroquois-land. His bravery, coolness, and skill were al¬ 
ready being noted by the warriors. How proud of him 
were his adopted father and mother! 

Slowly the new member of the tribe began to pick up 
the Indian language. He saw that the red man expresses 
himself by the use of his hands fully as much as by the 
use of his tongue. When he had once got at the ideas back 
of some of these most frequently used gestures, Pierre 


THE WHITE MOHAWK 


33 


found that he could readily follow the meaning of a 
speaker. In time he could make himself understood by 
others. 

From his “father,” chiefly, he learned much about the 
Iroquois and their hunting grounds. He learned that 
there were five fairly distinct tribes in the Iroquoian 
Confederacy. He himself—and this he had learned early 
—was now a Mohawk. The Mohawk hunting grounds 
lay all about that village, but largely to the south and 
west. A short journey to the southwest brought the 
traveler into the lands of the Oneidas. Beyond them, in a 
land of many lakes, were the Onondagas, the Senecas, 
the Cayugas. 

Each tribe lived in villages much like this one, with 
strong houses and much cleared land where crops of corn 
and squashes and melons were raised by the squaws. The 
Indians of no other tribe were permitted to hunt within 
many days’ journey of the lands under the sway of the 
Iroquois tribesmen. 

“Truly,” boasted the older man, “the Great Spirit looks 
upon the Iroquois as his favored children. Has he not 
given them the fairest lands in the world? And does he 
not give them victory over all their enemies? Look at 
the Hurons, across the big water. They allowed the pale¬ 
faces to come among them and teach them to follow after 
some strange new god. And where are these foolish 
Hurons now? We went against them, killed their 
warriors, burned their villages, and sent the remnants 
of their tribe, trembling with fear, to hide somewhere 
in the forest beyond the setting sun. Surely, the Great 
Spirit strengthened our hands in our wars with those 
Hurons.” 


34 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Many a long evening, while winter storms raged out¬ 
side, did young Pierre Radisson sit by the fire and listen 
while his “father” and other warriors recounted tales of 
Iroquoian prowess. 

But you must not think that Pierre fell quickly and 
easily into the life and habits of his Indian companions. 
At intervals there came to him a great longing for the 
log-cabin home of Marguerite and Medart, and for the 
life of civilized people. Although the thought of escape 
always lurked somewhere in his mind, he was reminded 
almost daily that he was, in a way, still a prisoner. Never 
was he allowed to go alone into the woods. When longer 
trips were taken by hunting parties, or when a group of 
the warriors paid a visit to one of the other villages, 
Pierre, if allowed to go, was closely watched. When such 
parties camped by the trail at night, two of the craftiest 
warriors always lay down close to Pierre, one on either 
side. He learned, by experiment, that he could not make a 
move during the night without causing his two “bedfel¬ 
lows” to become instantly alert. 

“Truly,” thought Pierre on such occasions, “these new 
friends of mine sleep with one eye always open. Escape 
from them I could not—no, not in a hundred years.” 

Pierre, then, settled down in what appeared to be per¬ 
fect contentment with his life as a young Indian warrior. 
Almost without knowing it, he was finding it constantly 
easier to cover up his true feelings—to make of his face 
a stolid mask, so that no one might guess what was going 
on back of it. Was he tired, hungry, cold, scared, grate¬ 
ful to his Indian mother for her kindness to him, suffer¬ 
ing from a wrenched ankle or a bruised muscle? Pierre’s 
face told nothing. It was the Indian way; it became his 
way. Patience, too, he acquired. He learned to wait. He 


THE WHITE MOHAWK 


35 


decided to be a good Indian, to be brave and cheerful and 
loyal to the chief. 

Some day, perhaps, his adopted brothers would drop a 



REGION OF THE EARLY FUR TRADE 

Explanation of symbols: A, Radisson among the Iroquois; B, The voyage 
of Radisson and Groseilliers to Lake Superior; C, Probable later wander¬ 
ings of the two traders. 


little of that ceaseless watchfulness of him, let him out of 
their sight, trust him. When that time came, if it ever did, 
Pierre knew in his heart that he would make a great 
effort to rejoin his people on the St. Lawrence. 

Pierre was surprised to discover how many things 















36 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

could be learned from the Indians. He turned eagerly to 
the study and practice of those skills in which the red 
men were unrivalled. He learned the habits of the forest 
creatures. In time he could imitate the call of the moose, 
the bark of the fox, the owl’s hoot, the cry of the loon. 
He became skilled in making all sorts of snares and traps, 
in shooting straight and true with bow and arrow. With 
his adopted father as teacher he gained the ability to 
follow the dimmest trail swiftly and surely, and to make 
a fire by friction under the worst of weather conditions. 

The first spring came slowly on, and the fair wood¬ 
land kingdom of the Mohawks sprang to life. Deep, lush 
summer followed. Then came Pierre’s first full autumn 
in the land of the Mohawks, with its magic forest colors, 
its mellow hazy air, and its glorious hunting. There fol¬ 
lowed the second time of heavy snow and tingling frost, 
and on in the circle of the seasons to the second summer 
—with Pierre tall, lean, sinewy, his dark eyes clear and 
bright, the flush of health in his tanned cheeks. Pierre, 
a full-fledged Mohawk warrior now, with a growing 
reputation for courage and wisdom, was now, indeed, 
an Indian to all outward appearances. 

At last the thing Pierre had been waiting for came 
about. The Indians, sure at last that the white boy was 
content among them, relaxed their watchfulness. At once 
the old longing to live his life among his own people 
surged up inside Pierre Radisson, and he began laying 
plans for escape. 

In the forest near the village Pierre found a large, 
hollow oak tree. To this tree he brought from time to time 
some scrap of dried or smoked meat that he had been able 
to take unobserved from the family supply. A pair of 


THE WHITE MOHAWK 


37 


moccasins and a buckskin bag he had found followed the 
morsels of food to the hollow in the tree. 

Slowly the fall days of that second autumn in the 
Mohawk village wore on. Slowly the store of food in the 
hollow tree increased. At last the hard frosts came, the 
forest took on its glorious mantle of red and gold, the 
ferns and grasses turned brown and sere and crisp. The 
ground became hard and dry. All this was what Pierre 
was waiting for. He knew that he could travel much 
faster now than in midsummer. 

“But,” you ask, “couldn’t the Indians, if they pursued 
him, travel faster, too?” Of course they could. But they 
would have to follow the trail left by the flying feet of 
Pierre, and that trail would be so much harder to follow 
now that every frost-bitten blade of grass and every leaf 
would spring stiffly back into place, leaving no imprint 
of moccasined feet. 

One mild morning Pierre rose from his breakfast at 
the campfire and began to stroll carelessly in the direction 
of the forest. His “mother” had just been joking him 
about his big appetite, assuring him that every bit of 
dried meat and all the corn and maple sugar they could 
possibly store in their section of the “long house” would 
be gone long before spring if Pierre kept on eating as 
much as he did now. 

How hard it was to go without saying good-bye to this 
kind Indian mother of his! But all he dared do was to take 
a long, steady look at her as she bent there over the fire, 
so that in after years he might remember that kindly, 
brown, wrinkled face. 

How carefree Pierre looked as he sauntered toward the 
woods! He grunted more than one Iroquoian “good 


38 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

morning” as he passed among the campfires. But inside 
him, you may be sure, Pierre’s heart was pounding furi¬ 
ously. For this was the morning—the morning of his 
flight from his home among the Iroquois. 

In a few moments, long ones to Pierre, yellowing 
thickets hid him from the eyes of his Indian friends and 
neighbors. Then it was that he ran, trembling, to his oak- 
tree treasure, tied his little sack of food securely to his 
belt, thrust the extra pair of moccasins inside his shirt, 
and sprang away at a fast trot into the woods. 

Several hunting parties were out. Any one of these 
might be heading back toward the village along one of 
the many paths that radiated out into the forest from it. 
Too much risk, thought Pierre, to use one of these in 
his flight. It was a case of shaping his course through 
trackless wilderness. 

Pierre ran on and on, skirting the densest thickets, 
bounding over tree trunks at a fast clip. In his quaint old 
journal, discovered and translated into English many 
years later, he states that excitement made him run too 
fast at first. Blood, he says, oozed from his ears and 
nostrils. He dropped to a walk for a little time and then 
went along steadily at the “dog trot” he had learned from 
the Mohawks. It looked almost slow, but it ate up the 
miles. On and on went Pierre. 

Now a glance at the map on page 35 will show you 
that Montreal is off to the north and east of the Iroquois 
hunting grounds. In your mental picture of Pierre’s 
flight you probably see him making a bee line in that 
direction. 

But no, the French boy was traveling almost due east. 
Why? Well, there were two reasons for this. In the first 


THE WHITE MOHAWK 


39 


place, between Pierre and distant Montreal lay the St. 
Lawrence River, wide, deep, swift. Reaching the river 
exhausted, and with no way to get across, Pierre rea¬ 
soned that he would fall into the hands of the Indian 
trackers who were sure to take up his trail. In the second 
place, sharp-witted Pierre had learned from the Indians 
a great deal about the Dutch traders and their fort over 
on the fine, southward-flowing river. A number of the 
warriors had been there to trade, and Pierre knew that 
the guns with which more and more of the warriors were 
arming themselves came from these Dutchmen in ex¬ 
change for peltries. As near as he could determine from 
the fragments of information he had pieced together, 
this Dutch fort and trading post ought to be about east 
or a little southeast of his starting point. How far was 
it? Pierre had only vague ideas on that subject. He had 
never felt it safe to show too much interest in the matter. 
At any rate, he was confident that his knowledge of the 
woods, his stout legs, and his bag of food would get him 
there. That is, if those dogged Iroquois trailers, who 
might even now be in pursuit, could be outdistanced. 

On ran Pierre, with half of his mind on the unknown 
trail ahead and half of it on what might be behind. He 
pictured his Indian father, after an hour or so, casually 
taking up his trail to see what the white boy was about. 
He would come to the oak tree, piece together what had 
happened there, and note with growing excitement the 
signs of Pierre’s rapid gait beyond that point. He would 
hurry back to the village, consult the chief, and, in a few 
minutes’ time, the best of the Mohawk trailers would 
take up the hunt. 

Pierre had heard of other prisoners who had attempted 


40 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

to escape. He knew the Mohawk cunning and persistence 
that had tracked them down. He-knew that death at the 
stake had been the fate of the recaptured. In his case it 
was certain that the proud warriors could never, never 
forgive this insult to their long hospitality. 

Pierre was certain that there would be pursuit. But 
would his pursuers stick to his trail, or would they con¬ 
clude that he was striking north toward Montreal and 
spread their dragnet to gather him in on the banks of the 
St. Lawrence, if not before? This was a point of uncer¬ 
tainty, and it was enough to keep him doggedly at the job 
of staying ahead of any possible pursuers. 

A week later the Dutch traders at Fort Orange, on the 
Hudson River, were startled when they happened to look 
over to the edge of the stumpy clearing about their trad¬ 
ing post. What they saw was a tattered figure staggering 
out of the forest and making its way toward them. It 
was Pierre Radisson at the end of his one-hundred-and- 
twenty-five-mile run. 

Did those vengeful red men of Pierre’s village take his 
trail, and did they almost come up with him ? Pierre never 
knew what happened in the Mohawk village or on his 
trail. He never saw one of those Indians again. 

Here he was, his food supply exhausted these two 
days, his buckskin suit in tatters, his face, arms, and bare 
feet cut and bruised. Pierre felt that he had been hurry¬ 
ing through the woods for years and that he had never 
done anything else but scramble through thickets, floun¬ 
der across marshes, and swim streams. 

Now the Dutch traders were none too fond of French¬ 
men or of that French colony on the St. Lawrence. They 
were scheming day and night to get the bulk of the fur 
trade away from those northerners. And they knew it 


THE WHITE MOHAWK 


41 


was sound policy to keep on the best of terms with the 
Iroquois. But here was a poor French lad who had had 
the pluck and wit to escape from the tribesmen. Could 
they do aught but open their kindly Dutch hearts to the 
fugitive ? 

Into the shelter and safety of their snug quarters they 
led Pierre, and there, after feeding him, they tucked him 
into a warm bunk. Time enough to talk when the boy had 
had sleep and rest. Sleep? Pierre was asleep almost as 
soon as he touched his bed. 

It was twenty hours later when he stepped into the 
general room of the post. The traders plied him with food 
and fitted him out with warm clothes, the while asking 
him eager questions about his life with the Mohawks. 

When he said he wanted to get back to Montreal, Van 
Wert, the head man at the post, gave him the good news 
that all had been arranged for the first stage of the jour¬ 
ney. Pierre was to be put on board the company’s trading 
boat which was expected up from New Amsterdam on the 
morrow. On this he would travel down the river, armed 
with a letter to the Dutch officials there which should 
give him such hospitality as the place afforded. Now and 
then a ship touching at New Amsterdam also put in at 
the French ports in Canada; no doubt Pierre could get 
passage on one of these. 

So it came about that the last ship to sail up the St. 
Lawrence that fall carried Pierre Radisson back to his 
home. There came an afternoon when he stood in the 
doorway of his sister’s home in Montreal. Madame Gro- 
seilliers, looking up, was sure at first that before her 
stood the ghost of her brother. Had he not been given 
up as dead these two years now ? 

This is no ghost, though, Madame Groseilliers, you 


42 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


may be sure. Instead, big, bronzed, smiling Pierre in the 
flesh is home again, back alive from that grim wilderness 
to the southward where dwelt those terrible enemies of 
all Frenchmen, the Iroquois. 

Questions on the Story 

1. How was Pierre’s fate finally settled by the Mohawks? 

2. In what ways was Pierre getting to be an “Indian”? Was he 
an “Indian” on the inside? 

3. Explain how the prisoner prepared for his flight from the 
Iroquois village. 

4. How did the Dutch at Fort Orange treat Pierre? Did they 
feel friendly toward all French people? Explain. 

Things to Think About 

1. Have you heard of other instances of adoption by the In¬ 
dians? Do you remember the story of Daniel Boone, and how the 
Indians wished to adopt him ? 

2. What seems to be meant by the term, “Iroquoian Con¬ 
federacy”? 

3. What traits of the Indians are illustrated in this story? 

4. Do you think that Pierre had any regrets at leaving the 
Mohawk village? 

5. What feelings would the Dutch and the French in America 
be likely to have toward each other? 

Things to Do 

1. After studying about the Iroquois and looking at illustra¬ 
tions, try drawing a picture of an Iroquois long house. 

2. Give a talk before the class on this subject: The Pleasant Side 
of Life in an Indian Village. 

3. Look up in a history book the story of the Huron Indians. 
Locate their early home. 

4. Find and report on the story of the beginnings of the Dutch 
colony in America. 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


piERRE RADISSON was at home. The fur-trade out- 
A post of the French at Montreal had changed little dur¬ 
ing the two years that he had been away. There were the 
log buildings where the traders stored their goods and 
where the trade with the visiting Indians was carried on. 
There were the straggling row of log houses where the 
settlers lived, the church, and the fort. 

Pierre tried hard to be glad that he was back in Mont¬ 
real. He wandered about, answering many questions 
about his captivity. He visited the soldiers, the traders, 
and the farmers. As the days passed, he spent more and 
more of his time sitting in the little cabin of Medart and 
Marguerite, busy with his thoughts. 

Pierre had changed, if Montreal had not. The town 
looked ugly to him. The people were too noisy and talka¬ 
tive. The sight of the soldiers clumping about in their stiff 
uniforms and saluting their officers wherever and when¬ 
ever one of these high-headed persons was encountered 
was displeasing to Pierre. He found the christenings, the 
weddings, and the dances which every one attended tire¬ 
some. 


43 





44 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

“Medart,” Pierre burst out one day when he and his 
brother-in-law were busy cutting a log destined for the 
Groseilliers fireplace, “I cannot endure to remain long 
here at Montreal. I like neither the town nor the people!” 

Medart grinned at him from the other side of the log. 
“Am I supposed to look surprised at your words, my 
Pierre ? I cannot, for I have known your feelings on this 
matter for weeks. Is it that you wish to return to 
France?” 

“No, no, not that, Medart. But my life among the Mo¬ 
hawks has changed me. They were so silent, so calm. The 
red people take the forest, the rivers, and the lakes, and 
enjoy them as they are—they do not try to make every¬ 
thing over, as we whites do.” Pierre smiled a little over 
the high-sounding speech he had made, and then sobered 
once more. “Perhaps, Medart, I am an Indian now.” 

“Pierre/’ said Medart softly, “you have been thinking 
much of late. Some plan is forming in your head. What 
is it?” 

“Well, then, it is like this,” responded Pierre. “I am 
homesick, homesick for the wilderness. No, I desire not 
to return to the village of the Indians. But I feel that I 
must go to see for myself the great wilderness that lies 
to the west. I want to cast my eye upon lakes and rivers, 
knowing that no eye of white man has before rested on 
them. Farther than Jean Nicolet voyaged, farther than 
our Jesuits have yet carried the cross—there is where I 
wish to place my feet. But,” and Pierre picked up his axe 
again, “to you, Medart, this is only a foolish dream.” 

By this time Medart was on Pierre’s side of the log. 
“Pierre! Is that what has made you so solemn and 
thoughtful ? My Pierre, many nights have I tossed in my 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


45 


bed burning with these same thoughts and dreams and 
longings/’ 

The Groseilliers woodpile grew no larger that day. 
Side by side on the log sat Pierre and Medart, heads close 
together, while they schemed and plotted for their escape 
from the grubby little town out into the dim old forests 
of the west. 

Winter blustered in from the north. The months of 
storm and cold dragged by. At last there dawned a cer¬ 
tain chill spring morning on the St. Lawrence. Mists still 
wrapped themselves about everything. But one who 
looked sharp might see two figures pushing a large canoe 
out from a little cove into the swift current of the river. 
These two men with the canoe were Medart and Pierre. 
Slipping silently and secretly away from Montreal they 
were, in a canoe loaded almost to the water’s edge with 
mysterious, buckskin-wrapped bundles. 

Why so early? And why so secret about it all? The 
answer is to be found in the fur trade of Canada. There 
was just one good reason for those early French towns 
and posts along the cold St. Lawrence in those days and 
just one reason for all the effort and expense of the 
French government across the sea in France to make the 
colony of Canada a success. That reason was bound up 
in one little word: fur. 

The great river led to those big inland seas off there 
to the west, waters which the merest handful of French¬ 
men had as yet even seen. Other rivers and other lakes, 
so the Ottawas said, thousands of them, spread out over 
a land many, many times larger than France. Gliding 
through the forests that hemmed in these lakes and 
rivers, or swimming and diving in the cold, sparkling 


46 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

waters was a countless population of minks, otters, 
weasels, martens, muskrats, and beavers, whose silky 
coats, made glossy and thick by the long cold of winter, 
brought high and steady prices in every country in 
Europe. A prime beaver pelt brought to market was just 
about as reliable in its value as a gold coin. 

The men sent to rule Canada—the governor and his 
assistants, and the soldiers and the gentlemen and the 
merchants—were quick to see that Canada possessed a 
valuable “crop” that could be turned to instant profit. 
They saw in Canada’s peltries prosperity for the colony. 
They saw, too, the promise of a quick way to line their 
own purses here in the new country. Soon they were all 
scheming and dreaming little else but fur. 

First of all, what about the red men? Well, there were 
those Iroquois off to the south. Nothing much could be 
done about them beyond keeping them from wrecking the 
schemes of the French. But here were these others, on the 
St. Lawrence itself, and then off beyond them along the 
western waterway: the Ottawas, the Chippewas, the 
Menominees, the Winnebagoes, and dozens of other 
tribes. They were friendly and must be kept so. Down 
from the west each spring came these tribesmen in ever- 
increasing numbers, their canoes piled high with bales of 
rich peltries, seeking barter with the merchants. 

And what trading! Why, for a handful of beads you 
could get a beaver skin. You could take a cheap trade gun, 
stand it upright, and tell one of these foolish red fellows 
that if he wanted that gun he must lay his beaver pelts 
flat, one upon the other, until the pile of fur was as high 
as the gun was tall. Then the Indian made off with the 
gun, and the stack of furs was yours. Truly, there was 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


47 


great profit to be made in the fur trade. How well those 
rulers of Canada knew the value of that great western 
wilderness in the gold louis of France! 

“Well, well,” thought the governor of New France, 
and his assistants, and the gentlemen, and the merchants, 
“this trade will make us rich. But if we don’t watch out 
every habitant will leave his farm, every voyageur for¬ 
sake his paddle, every soldier desert his post and plunge 
into the woods to get this fur. That will spoil the king’s 
plan for a good colony—and cut down our chance for 
profit!” 

So the great men got their heads together and made a 
plan. Aha! the license: that was the idea. Let no man en¬ 
gage in the fur trade without a license. Whoever did so 
was an outlaw. And these licenses—the governor and his 
friends would see to it that only the right men procured 
them. The spoils of the western forests and streams were 
to go, so it seemed, to line the pockets of a few greedy 
men. 

And now to get back to our friends, Pierre and Medart, 
paddling away so secretly on that foggy spring morning. 
You have guessed before now the reason for all that 
stealth. The two young rascals had put themselves out¬ 
side the law; they were going ofif to the unknown with¬ 
out that all-important license. They had known only too 
well that they could not get one, yet they “just had to go.” 

The two adventurers had had plenty of trouble in get¬ 
ting ofif, as it was. People had been curious about that big 
new canoe, bought from that Ottawa brave. And why, 
they wanted to know, had those lads, Pierre and Medart, 
asked so many questions of anyone who had had the 
slightest experience in the western country, about the 


48 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

rivers and lakes and portages off there in the wilderness ? 
Why had they jabbered with every Indian they met, try¬ 
ing to pick up a smattering of his language ? It had taxed 
the wits of the plotters most of all when it came to buying 
trade goods for the venture. They were weeks at it, buy¬ 
ing a brass kettle or so here, a bolt of red calico there, 
until all the small wealth they possessed was converted 
into the stock of merchandise nestling now in the fine new 
birch canoe. 

As to Madame Groseilliers, Pierre’s sister, how she 
looked upon the venture, what provision Medart had 
made for her in his absence—one guess is as good as an¬ 
other. That old journal of Radisson’s, discovered so many 
years later in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, England, 
is silent on this matter. 

The journal gives us an insight into the mind and heart 
of Pierre Radisson. He seems to have been so in love with 
the wilderness, what he saw and did from day to day in 
its trackless depths so occupied his thoughts, that all else 
was crowded out. Friends, home, the ordinary comforts 
of civilized life—if we read Pierre’s old journal cor¬ 
rectly, all these things dropped away from him as com¬ 
pletely as if his life had begun on that morning when he 
turned his back on Montreal. From then on his eyes were 
on the route ahead. Never once did he look back. Perhaps 
all this explains his greatness as an explorer. 

Pierre and Medart breathed a little easier when a bend 
in the river hid them from the eyes of a possible early 
riser back in Montreal, visible now through the rising 
mists. Pierre rested on his knees in the bottom of the 
canoe, not far back of the prow. In the stern was Medart. 
Each wielded a light cedar paddle, Pierre plying his 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


49 


steadily on one side of the canoe, Medart steering- as well 
as paddling. High in the prow, and in the space between 
the adventurers, were stacked the securely tied bundles. 



Lying within easy reach were two long heavy muskets. 

The river, bank-full from the spring freshets, rolled 
down strongly against the paddlers. The high-jutting 
prow of the canoe tossed the water to right and left in 
graceful sprays. Great flocks of ducks, geese, and brant 









50 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

roared upward from the reedy shallows, circled, and 
dropped again. Warming to their work, Pierre and Me- 
dart sent their canoe against the current at a lively rate. 

A day’s hard paddling brought them to the mouth of 
the Ottawa River, rolling in strongly from the north¬ 
west. Here Medart headed the craft in toward a pine- 
clad point. Before the canoe so much as grated on the 
gravel shore Pierre was overboard into the shallow wa¬ 
ter. While he steadied the canoe Medart carried ashore 
some of the heavier bundles. Then, one man at either end 
of the canoe, they carried it bodily up the bank and laid 
it down carefully in a bed of pine needles. They knew 
how thin and delicate the bottom of a birch canoe is, and 
they were at great pains, in all their travels, to keep from 
grinding against rocks and gravel. 

While Medart opened the pack containing the camping 
outfit, Pierre, with a hatchet, cut some pine splinters and, 
with flint and steel, started a fire. By the time they had 
finished their supper of black bread, bear’s fat for butter, 
and smoked fish, the stars were out. Pierre and Medart, 
like other great voyagers of those days, carried no tent. 
After smoking, they replenished the fire, rolled up in 
their blankets, and went to sleep, feet to the fire. If the 
night had been rainy, they would have propped their 
canoe on one edge, stored their goods carefully under¬ 
neath, and crawled under themselves. 

“Well, brother”—Medart’s voice was muffled by his 
robe which he had drawn up close about his face—“you 
seem oddly quiet, even for you. Can it be that you are 
homesick for Montreal?” 

“Oh, Medart!” came Pierre’s voice sleepily from his 
blanket, “to lie here and look up at the stars and know 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


51 


that I am free! Montreal? Not even a company of the 
king’s guard could drag me back there.” 

Next morning, early, the canoe once more was forcing 
its way against the current of the Ottawa. But why the 
Ottawa? Why not on along the St. Lawrence to Lake 
Ontario, to Lake Erie, and so into the west? The best 
answer to this query is to be found in the fact that both 
Lake Ontario and Lake Erie were, at that time, practi¬ 
cally Iroquoian water. Woe to Frenchmen, or friends of 
Frenchmen, who fell into the hands of those prowling 
warriors—an event likely to occur to any one venturing 
on those waters. Least of all did our friend, Pierre Radis- 
son, care to thrust his head a second time into the lion’s 
mouth. Is it to be wondered that Lake Erie was the last 
of the Great Lakes to be seen by the eyes of white men? 

So it was up the Ottawa for Pierre and Medart. Only 
after more than two weeks of hard canoeing they came 
to the place that an Ottawa Indian had told them to watch 
for: a landing-place, on their left hand, close by an out¬ 
cropping black rock. This, they knew, was the beginning 
of a short portage around a series of cascades in a small 
stream that here dropped into the Ottawa. 

On the bank of the river Pierre and Medart prepared 
to portage over to the quiet water on the smaller stream. 
Medart took from the outfit a broad strip of leather with 
a hook at each end. The hooks he slipped into “eyes” at 
the two ends of a thwart near the center of the canoe. 
Then with a rolling motion he heaved the empty canoe 
up over his head, settled the broad strap, or tumpline, 
across his forehead, took the two paddles Pierre handed 
him, and started up the dim trail. Pierre, with one of the 
heaviest bundles steadied on his back by a tumpline, and 


52 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

another smaller one in his arms, followed. After three 
trips, taking half a day's time in all, the adventurers were 
again afloat, this time on a nameless little river bearing 
in from the west. 

In a general way the two young “outlaws" knew what 
was before them: up this stream a day's journey, and 
then another portage—a long, hard, back-breaking one 
this time, through thickets and over sheer rock to the 
shores of a big lake called by the Ottawas, “Nipissing." 

“Go long so (west)," the Indian had directed. “Two 
sleeps find strong water go like this (fast) from big 
water. Canoe fly like eagle here. Pretty quick on big water 
again." 

This was the route of Medart and Pierre. It would 
carry them to Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, then on past 
Manitoulin Island, ever on into the west. Hundreds of 
miles from Montreal already, they were not much more 
than well started on the journey they planned to make. 

* * * 

Five months have slipped away. Before us is a strange, 
wild scene, somewhere on the southwest shore of Lake 
Superior. The rolling surf looks gray and cold, for it is 
fall now. Scudding clouds whisper of the big snows to 
come. 

Against the gray of the sky is a great moving wedge 
of dark forms, and from the southward-moving ranks 
drop the harsh, clear notes of the Canada “honkers." 
Down along the roadways of the upper air they go, 
mocking at Old Man Winter, distanced in the race but 
still hustling down the trail from the Arctic. 

Among the clumps of pine and balsam is a cluster of 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 53 

bark wigwams with smoke curling up through a hole in 
the rounded top of each. Just now several squaws are 
coming into the Indian camp, bent almost double with the 
great bundles of sticks and branches they have harvested 
for the wigwam fires. Near the camp, on the edge of a 
cove where the water is quiet, and the wind less keen 
and biting, a few half-grown Indian boys and girls are 
playing. 

Farther on, the eye lights on a knot'of Indian braves, 
robes gathered snugly about them, watching something 
that appears to interest them greatly. 

No wonder the braves are curious. Down there in a 
hollow sheltered from the wind is a new, queer-looking 
little house, vastly different from the tribesmen’s idea of 
what a human habitation ought to be. It is made of stout 
logs, neatly hewn and fitted at the corners. It has a door 
of heavy slabs. Its sloping roof of strong poles carries a 
foot-thick thatch of coarse grass, held in place against 
the wind by branches of trees. 

But the Indian men are not so much interested in the 
odd house as in the two figures so busy before it. These 
appear at first glance to be Indians unpacking some heavy 
bundles. But they are not Indians. They look like In¬ 
dians, but they do not talk or act like red men. They are 
Radisson and Groseilliers, as you have guessed already. 
No wonder we at first took them for Indians. Their buck¬ 
skin suits are worn and dark; their faces are burned to a 
coppery hue; their hair is long and unkempt. At this mo¬ 
ment they are intent on getting the supplies from the big 
canoe safely inside the strong little house they have just 
completed. 

What a long, glorious summer it has been for Pierre 


54 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

and Medart! There has been plenty of hard work with a 
spice of danger sprinkled in from time to time. Up along 
the shore of the Georgian Bay they pushed, then up 
against the strong swift current of the Sault Ste. Marie. 
Here even the corded muscles and stout backs of the two 
adventurers were put to severe test against that rushing 
blue-green torrent. 

A day came at last when, spreading out endlessly be¬ 
fore their eager eyes, lay the mightiest of the inland lakes, 
Superior. They paddled along its southern shoreline into 
the west. Twice sudden squalls from off the great inland 
sea capsized them, and there was much of a to-do to get 
canoe and cargo safely ashore at the expense of a good 
sousing for themselves. Then there were almost endless 
days of lying among the rocks under the upturned craft, 
doing their best to keep their precious freight and them¬ 
selves reasonably dry while week-long storms, lashed the 
lake to sullen fury. 

But between the days of hard work and the periods of 
soggy inaction, what blood-stirring incidents, what 
breath-taking sights and scenes! Well did Medart re¬ 
member that morning when, as he was picking up dry 
firewood, that great, flat-antlered ox of the woods 
charged him. Only the low-hanging branches of a tree, 
into which Medart swung himself like a monkey, saved 
him from the horns and hoofs of the great beast. Then 
there was the day when that submarine monster “swal¬ 
lowed bait, hook, and sinker” of a fishline trailing behind 
the canoe and was towing the whole outfit toward the 
middle of the lake when Pierre cut the line and freed 
them from a voyage little to their liking. For the better 
part of another day the canoe skirted a rocky, overhang- 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


55 


ing wall, 1 so fanciful in color, so fantastically carved by 
the waves, that Pierre could easily imagine giant sculp¬ 
tors and artists at work along that shore. 

“Medart,” mused Pierre, “ ’tis a wild, savage land, but 
one of beauty and promise. Today it appears to be peopled 
by only a scattering race of savages; but, methinks, a day 
comes when this wilderness gives way before the civilized 
men of our own race.” 

“Perhaps you are right, brother,” responded Medart. 
“But a hundred, yes, a thousand years will pass ere aught 
but these red savages roam these shores.” 

“At any rate,” laughed Pierre, “I like it best as it is. 
To me it is a good thought that today we—you and I— 
are kings of a wilderness empire. Is it not better to rule 
an empty land than to play the part of meek subjects in 
a country like even our France? No, Medart, if given my 
choice I would not have been born a day later than the 
one that brought me into the world. You see, I would 
then have missed this chance to paddle on with you across 
a world as new and fresh as the day the good God made 
it.” 

Thus it was that Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseil- 
liers, coureurs des bois, forest rangers, paddled and 
hunted and fished and talked their way to the heart of a 
continent. And so they came at last to a great bay with 
many islands lying across its broad mouth and a pretty 
wooded shore behind it. Skirting this shore line, the 
travelers saw here and there in sheltered places clumps 
of wigwams, with canoes drawn up before each one. 
Women and children clustered and gazed out at them, 
but of braves only a few here and there were to be seen. 


*The Pictured Rocks on the south shore of Lake Superior. 



56 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

“The men of these villages are off on the fall hunting,” 
Pierre explained. “This is the season when the meat sup¬ 
ply is laid in. Dried fish and smoked fish, no doubt, have 
already been laid by.” 

“Now, my Pierre,” Medart cried, “is not all this just 
as we would have it? It is time for us to forsake this 
stormy lake and get ourselves snug for the winter. Here 
along this bay are the red men who can trap the furs for 
us, just as we have planned. Let us then seek out a good 
place for our winter camp and call this the end of our 
present journey.” 

Thus it was decided. Even the wide-ranging spirit of 
Pierre Radisson was satisfied with the accomplishments 
of the first summer—with the distance covered, the 
strange new lands discovered. Soon the two adventurers 
were ashore—and at work on the first white man’s house 
ever to be built on the shores of Lake Superior—the 
house, of course, that we have already described. 

Now it was that Pierre and Medart began playing the 
role of traders. Many a day during that long summer, 
many a night about the campfire, had they discussed 
plans for the trading. The key to success, they were sure, 
lay in the manner in which they met and dealt with the 
Indians. Every move had been carefully decided upon. 

During their first few days ashore, the traders paid 
almost no attention to their neighbors. They kept steadily 
at work at the cabin and at piling up a great stack of fire¬ 
wood. They were watched constantly, they felt sure of 
that. But they made few friendly gestures, more espe¬ 
cially as so many of the warriors were still absent. They 
felt pretty certain that none of these women and children, 
and probably few of the men of these Lake Superior 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


57 


tribes, had ever before seen a white man. They therefore 
adopted an air of indifference toward their neighbors 
and went unconcernedly about their work, feeling that 
their present safety and their future success would both 
be helped in this way. 

In quick order the logs for the cabin had been cut, 
notched, and grooved, and laid in place. A crude fireplace 
was then built, and a heavy door hung on leathern hinges. 
The one opening that served as a window had a heavy 
shutter that could be securely barred. At some expense of 
labor, the thick thatch for the roof had been collected 
along the shore and put in place. The two busy carpenters 
felt that it would hold a heavy blanket of snow and would 
shed at least most of the rain. Their labor was all fun, but 
it was hard work, too. 

About the time the cabin was fairly complete, the In¬ 
dian hunters began coming in from the surrounding for¬ 
est. Soon the trees around the wigwams were well bur¬ 
dened with the hanging carcasses of deer, moose, bear, 
and smaller animals. The squaws were busy from day¬ 
light to dark taking off the pelts, tanning the hides, and 
cutting up the meat. The warriors themselves lost no 
time in coming over to have a look at the two strangers 
and their house. We have already noted a group of them 
watching with interest the doings of the two white men. 

As soon as Pierre and Medart had their precious stock 
of goods safe inside, they decided to take their second 
carefully planned step. 

“Medart,” said Pierre, “do you see? These red people 
think us beings with, perhaps, great and mysterious pow¬ 
ers. Even their men do not come forward boldly to speak 
to us. Methinks none of these have ever been on the St. 


58 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Lawrence. They fear us. Very good, we must contrive 
to keep them as they are.” 

“It is indeed as you say,” responded Medart. “Let us 
now begin to walk boldly among them, almost as if we 
did not see them at all. I have heard it said, 'Never show 
fear to a savage/ ” 

Our two young traders were far from home. They 
planned to spend the winter on this savage shore, per¬ 
haps many winters in the western country, surrounded 
always by stalwart, hard-fighting braves who could snuff 
out their lives at any moment they wanted to do so. Those 
precious trade goods must be displayed if a trade in furs 
was to be established. What was to prevent the Indians, 
their gr6£d once aroused, from seizing the goods, even 
though it might suit their whim to spare the lives of the 
traders ? 

Pierre and Medart relied on two things, principally, to 
bring their venture along successfully. First, here was 
this awe and superstitious fear that must be played upon 
to the limit during these first days and weeks; and as this 
feeling wore off, as it was sure to do, it must be replaced 
by a genuine respect for the two whites as men. This would 
be harder, but both Pierre and Medart felt themselves 
bold and hardy enough to deal with the red men on a 
man-to-man basis and win their respect. In the second 
place they counted on the Indian’s inborn honesty to 
make the trade goods reasonably safe, once they had won 
the friendship of the tribesmen. Pierre had noticed 
among the Mohawks that respect for personal property 
was a common trait. Medart had had chances at Mon¬ 
treal, as he watched the trading there, to see how little 
the unspoiled red man was given to pilfering. 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


59 


On the following day Pierre and Medart stalked sol¬ 
emnly among the nearer clusters of wigwams, each with 
a hand lifted in token of friendship. The warriors, who 
by this time were largely back from the fall hunt, gath¬ 
ered slowly in a group about their chief and with expres¬ 
sionless black eyes watched the two white men approach¬ 
ing them. The squaws had hidden away with their chil¬ 
dren in the darkest corner of the wigwams or had bolted 
into the woods. 

“Well, it’s now or never!” must have been uppermost 
in the thoughts of Pierre and Medart as they walked 
straight on toward the grim warriors. Right among them 
walked the two young white men, the Indians drawing 
away to form a circle about them. Pierre, standing very 
straight, made a speech. 

He told, partly with his tongue, but largely with his 
hands, how the Great-White-Father-across-the-Sea 1 had 
sent his children to dwell on the great river to the east; 
how they now were almost numberless, with other num¬ 
berless tribes hurrying to join these from across the 
Great Waters. Pierre was proud and boastful when he 
pictured the power of these tribes of palefaces on the St. 
Lawrence. But he almost choked with feeling when he 
went on to state that one and all of them, from the Great- 
White-Father-across-the-Sea down to the humblest sub¬ 
ject, had only love in their hearts for their red brethren 
of the forest. 

Now as for them—Pierre and Medart—they had been 
specially sent by the great white chief of Canada to greet 
for him the red men of the western waters. As a special 
compliment to these dwellers on the great bay, they had 


J The King of France. 



60 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

built their winter’s habitation among them. They came in 
peace. Let the red brothers see to it, then, that peace it 
was. Pierre spoke as if he had a regiment of French in¬ 
fantry at his back. 

The braves listened as attentively as if they had under¬ 
stood every word of Pierre’s speech. At the end there 
were a few grunts, and Pierre’s keen ears told him he 
had made a good impression. 

Then the chief began speaking. Pierre’s life among the 
Mohawks made it possible for him to follow the general 
drift of the remarks. The chief had heard something 
about these strangers on the big river, so it seemed, 
though he and the people of his village had never before 
seen any of these palefaces. They felt very proud, he 
said, to have the two great strangers dwell among them. 
He hoped, above all things, that these new and wonderful 
friends had brought with them in their canoe some of 
those strange and delightful objects he had heard the 
palefaces possessed. 

More than once Pierre and Medart heard the name 
“Ojibway” in the chief’s speech. At last they understood. 
These Indians were a part of the great tribe of the Ojib¬ 
way, or, as it is oftener pronounced and written today, the 
Chippewa. 

Later the traders were to learn much about this great 
northern tribe: how they were but recently come into 
this western lake region from farther east; how they 
were forcing their way down into the lands south of 
Lake Superior. Much later than the days of Pierre Radis- 
son, they were to fight with an eastern branch of the 
Sioux and push them westward out of areas where most 
of the Chippewas dwell to this day, on the reservations 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


61 


set aside for them in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. 

At the time the Chippewa chief was speaking, his hint 
about the trade goods made Pierre prick up his ears. As 
soon, then, as the Indian orator had finished, Pierre be¬ 
gan another speech. 

“Indeed, yes,” his flowery oratory “boiled down” into 
ordinary language said, “we have many of these strange 
new things in our wigwam, and you shall have a chance 
to cast an eye on them all in good time.” 

Then Pierre stepped forward and presented the chief 
with a small copper bell. As the eager brown hand drew 
back with the bell, it tinkled musically, and the old fellow 
dropped it with a grunt of astonishment. He recovered 
it with a sheepish grin, while the other warriors almost 
forgot themselves and laughed. Pierre then made them 
understand that in four days from that day they might 
come to the white man’s wigwam and see for themselves 
what it contained. With that he and Medart turned 
grandly and marched away to their snug cabin under the 
hill. 

Earlier they had adopted the four-day idea. In the first 
place, due ceremony demanded that a day be set, and one 
not too close. In the second place, Medart that morning 
had advanced an idea that seemed a good one, and it 
would take a few days to carry it out. Medart’s thought 
was that it might be well to surround the cabin with a 
brush fence or barricade. 

“When we begin the trading,” argued he, “we may find 
that we want to admit only a few of our red friends at 
a time to this cabin. The stockade with its gate will help 
us to separate our visitors into small squads.” 

The next morning bright and early the two traders 


62 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

were busy at the erection of a brush-and-log stockade 
around the cabin. The Indian men scarcely gave the two 
workers a glance. Friendship had been declared. In three 
days’ time now the great white strangers would receive 
the warriors at their queer-looking wigwam. In the mean¬ 
time they should not be disturbed. The last thought that 
would have come into an Indian’s head would have been 
to lend a helping hand. It simply wasn’t done in polite 
Indian society. 

Hard work completed the stockade shortly before 
darkness fell at the end of the third day. The top of the 
barrier was fully as high as a man’s head. Even an agile 
warrior would be baffled for a few minutes in any at¬ 
tempt to scale it. A stout pole gate had a heavy bar on 
the inside. The space enclosed was about the same area 
as a small garden patch. The cabin stood at one corner 
of the plot, one end and one side wall completing the 
stockade itself at that corner. Pierre and Medart were 
extremely proud of their job. 

About mid-forenoon of the fourth day the traders saw 
the chief and a few of the leading citizens of the village 
approaching. They came up to the gate of the stockade 
in great dignity. It was plain that each warrior had taken 
extra pains with his toilet and was wearing his “Sunday 
clothes.” 

“Medart,” whispered Pierre, “do you see this fortune 
in fur walking toward us? Those robes of mink and 
beaver and otter! If there is fur on the backs of the minks 
and the beavers as silky and fine as that which I see on 
the backs of yon guests, then indeed are we in the finest 
fur country in the world!” 

A little coaxing brought the red men inside the stock- 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


63 


ade, and from there, two by two, inside the tiny cabin. 
The old chief and one of his head men came first. Inside, 
what a sight for Indian eyes! Lighted by the flare of a 
torch, there on two crude benches such wares as the 
simple natives had never even dreamed of: yards and 
yards of bright red calico; black-and-red blankets; quarts 
of glistening beads; knives with pale, gleaming edges; 
brass kettles; pewter mugs; cubes of vermilion paint; 
needles, combs, brass rings—yes, even little looking- 
glasses ! No Indian could ever have imagined such won¬ 
derful treasures. They wanted to handle everything. 
They wanted, oh, how they longed to possess some of 
these wares of the palefaces. 

“How, oh, how, great white strangers/’ their grunts 
and gestures seemed to say, “how can we gain some of 
these marvels for ourselves?” 

For hours knots of warriors kept coming inside the 
stockade and passing inside the hut two by two—that was 
the rule—to gaze upon the wares displayed there. The 
chief and his head man received each a cube of paint; no 
other presents were given. Nor did the traders start any 
“dickering.” They smiled, they displayed all their wares, 
and then they placed each article carefully back on the 
pile where it belonged. 

At last they escorted the last of the visitors back out¬ 
side the fence. Here at least five score of the Indians had 
waited to see what would develop. Pierre had expected 
this and was ready with another speech. 

“My red brothers,” said he, “you have looked upon 
only a few of the many things your white brothers have 
to ofifer you. We wish to remain among you during the 
snowy moons that are almost here. We want only peace 


64 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

—peace between all red brothers and all white brothers. 
If our friendship remains unbroken, the Great-White 
Father-across-the-Sea will send to you still more won¬ 
derful things, including the great stick-that-speaks-and- 
kills-even-as-it-speaks. Now we see about your wigwams 
and on your persons the skins of the otter, the mink, and 
the beaver. Bring to us such of these as you can spare. 
Then go along the streams and get us fresh peltries, and 
you shall have in exchange all these goods and many 
more like them.” 

Thus ran the message of Pierre and Medart to the 
Lake Superior Indians. 

Would the red men go out looking for fur? Would 
they! It was not long before the harvest of skins began 
coming in, and day by day the piles of trade goods low¬ 
ered. Pierre and Medart hustled about all day long bar¬ 
tering endlessly with the Indian trappers: so many brass 
rings for an otter skin; one brass kettle for so many 
beaver skins. 

The two traders were beginning to suffer from lack of 
sleep, because it did not seem wise, as yet, to leave the 
goods unguarded at night. One of them was always on 
guard. In time this matter of sleep became a serious prob¬ 
lem. 

“Pierre, listen,” said Medart one morning, after he 
had had to watch during the long hours, “I have a grand 
thought. Yesterday I took from that lame old Indian in 
trade this long buckskin cord. Now in one of our packs 
we have many little bells, smaller than that one you gave 
the chief. Come, let us tie these bells, so far apart, along 
the cord.” 

Wonderingly Pierre lent a hand. 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


65 


“Now/’ went on Medart, “when it grows dark tonight 
we will push this cord, in and out, through our palisade, 
all the way around. We will do it cunningly so that 
neither cord nor bells may be seen. Thereafter if a prowl¬ 
ing Indian seeks to get close to this hut by night, to burst 
open the door or to set the place on fire, he will be sure 
to brush against our hidden cord. The cord will jerk, the 
bells will ring, and we shall wake up and drive off the 
prowler. Eh ? What would you do, my Pierre, without the 
wisdom of Medart Groseilliers?” 

Whack! Down came Pierre’s hard hand on his brother- 
in-law’s shoulder. “You have it, my brother! Sleep! Sleep 
every night! What a wonderful thing that will be.” 

That night the bell cord was put in place, and after 
that, as “cozy as coons,” the two young traders rolled in 
their blankets and slept till dawn. 

After two or three weeks Radisson and Groseilliers 
began to feel very much at’home there on the outskirts 
of the Chippewa village. Often one or the other of them 
walked about freely among the wigwams. Friendly greet¬ 
ings met them. Even the squaws smiled, while the shy 
little Indian boys and girls no longer ran away at the ap¬ 
proach of the strangers. 

Pierre and the old chief, tall and vigorous in spite of 
his sixty winters, became great friends. Many a grunt of 
satisfaction came from the old fellow whenever he was 
allowed to load his stone pipe from Pierre’s limited sup¬ 
ply of tobacco. Most of the time these far northern In¬ 
dians had to fall back on kinnikinnick for their pipes. 
They raised no tobacco themselves and got it in those 
days by barter with other tribes living farther south. 
This kinnikinnick was the dried inner bark of the red 


66 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

alder. Pierre found it at first rather bitter, but, when 
mixed with tobacco, not at all bad. 

Pierre and Medart fell early into the habit of greeting 
the Indians with a “Bon jour” (good day), whenever 
they met the men of the village. The old chief and some 
of his men took it up, and soon many of the tribesmen 
were saying good day to each other in the tongue of the 
Frenchmen. From that day to this the Indians of the 
north have continued using this salutation. Anywhere in 
the north country, if one happens to meet an old Indian 
and says “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” or “Good 
day” to him, he is almost sure to get in return “Bou 
zhou.” 

There seemed to be a mixture of Indian tribes and 
clans along the shores of the big bay that winter. In time 
Pierre and Medart learned that certain of the villages 
were on none too good terms with one another. Of course, 
the news of the presence of the two whites spread up 
and down the shore. Indians from fairly distant villages 
drifted in to trade. It could be seen that the Chippewa 
friends of Pierre and Medart treated all such visitors 
coldly. There was probably in all this something very 
much like childish jealousy. But the traders took the hint, 
were rather cold and distant themselves, and pushed the 
prices of their goods so high to the strange Indians that 
little or no trading was done. The all-important thing, 
in the view of Pierre and Medart, was to keep the friend¬ 
ship of their Indian neighbors. 

Up to this time the two traders had made no display 
of their guns and pistols. Since their arrival they had not 
fired a shot. 

“Medart,” remarked Pierre one afternoon, “do you 
note what a large crowd of visitors from the other vil- 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


67 


lages we have around us? I believe they mean mischief. 
They would rush upon us and seize our goods, except 
they are not quite sure what secret powers we may pos¬ 
sess. Watch me now, while I give them a still larger dose 
of that convenient medicine, Fear.” 

Quickly Pierre tore up an armful of long strips of 
birchbark from the logs in the woodpile. These he laid 
end to end in a big circle before the door of the cabin 
while scores of pairs of black eyes watched closely. On 
the strips of bark Pierre then poured from the precious 
supply of powder a continuous “powder train,” until the 
black, shining ends met. Out came flint and steel. Pierre 
dropped to his knees beside the “train.” A moment later 
a spark flashed downward into the powder. There was 
a sudden puff of black smoke and a dart of flame. The 
man of magic leaped to the center of his circle, and the 
next instant a towering wall of flame and smoke sur¬ 
rounded him. 

From beyond the brush fence rose a volley of terrified 
yelps. This was heap big medicine, indeed. There was a 
rush of moccasined feet, and then silence. Not one brave 
was in sight anywhere. Medart and Pierre dived in 
through the doorway of their cabin and rolled on the dirt 
floor, choking with laughter. 

Shortly after this incident the first real blizzard came 
swooping down across the lake, whipping its waters into 
a gray fury. The air filled with a smothering swarm of 
stinging icy pellets that struck the earth and slithered on, 
to roll together, finally, in big, gleaming drifts. For two 
days and nights the two traders stuck close inside their 
warm cabin and listened to the wind as it whined through 
the stiff branches of the trees. 

“These peltries we have bartered for!” one or the other 


68 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

would exclaim, after perhaps the twentieth examination 
of those big bales of furs over in the shadowy corner. 
“Did you, my brother, ever see their like? Fur of such 
a glossiness, of such a thickness! Truly, these bales al¬ 
ready taken from our friends in trade will be sufficient 
to repay the cost of all our trade goods, and leave a fine 
profit besides. And look: we still have on hand thrice the 
amount of the goods already sold.” 

That first storm was followed by weather so extremely 
cold that the two young Frenchmen felt certain there 
would be little or no stir among the Chippewa trappers. 
They were surprised to see many of the Indians setting 
off along;their trap lines as usual, loping over the drifts 
on their great snowshoes. 

This gave the traders an idea. They exchanged a few 
trinkets for two pairs of snowshoes for themselves. After 
some practice they learned the wide-legged swing of the 
snowshoer. It was great sport, they found, to travel about 
on their webbed feet in the dry, keen air. Never had they 
felt more vigorous and healthy than during their winter 
on the great northern lake. 

Then down whistled other blizzards, followed by pe¬ 
riods of bright, clear weather, when all the world seemed 
a gleaming, dazzling sheet of icy whiteness. The trade 
slackened, the tribesmen keeping more and more to their 
wigwams. Pierre and Medart, well supplied with meat 
and fish by the Indians, and with a grand pile of firewood 
at hand, settled down to await the time when the white 
world about them would melt away before the strength¬ 
ening rays of the sun. 

We can be sure that the two young traders whiled 
away many a long hour speculating on the new lands 


THE CABIN ON THE SHORE 


69 


they would see, the fresh adventures they would have, 
when summer again lay upon the wilderness they had 
already learned to love. 

Questions on the Story 

1. How did Pierre and Medart come to plan their great jour¬ 
ney? 

2. Why are they referred to as “outlaws” here ? 

3. Explain why Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to 
be seen by white men. 

4. What plans did Pierre and Medart carry out for winning the 
respect of the western Indians ? 

5. How did the Indians, who had never before seen white men, 
act toward the two adventurers ? 

6. What is a portage ? What methods were used in getting canoe 
and luggage over the portage ? 

Things to Think About 

1. Canoes, and not rowboats, were always used by men like 
Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers. Can you see why? 

2. Do you know of trades, or professions, or businesses in 
which licenses are necessary? Is the purpose the same in these 
cases as in the case of the license system in the Canadian fur trade? 

3. You have read of other explorers. What qualities did they 
have that were also possessed by Pierre and Medart ? 

4. Do you think it was natural for Pierre to get “homesick” 
after he got back to Montreal? 

Things to Do 

1. Trace on a wall map the route of Pierre and Medart’s canoe. 

2. Find an account of the construction of a birch canoe. 

3. Pretend you are Pierre Radisson and are keeping a diary. 
Put down the day-by-day experiences on the westward voyage. 
Keep up the diary for a week or more. 



THE SNOWY MOONS 


D RIL was almost gone. Only in deep ravines in the 



1 ^ woods could remnants of the winter snows be found. 
Lake Superior, its burden of ice and snow dissolved, 
flashed in the late spring sunshine. The ripple of waves 
along the shore seemed to coax Pierre Radisson and Me- 
dart Groseilliers to venture forth. 

“Pierre,” said Medart, as they sat lazily blinking at the 
sun one afternoon, “my hands itch for a paddle. Let us 
see more of this wild land.” 

“The canoe is ready, brother,” answered Pierre. 
“While you fished these last two days I went over each 
seam in its bottom with hot pitch. Fish! I have eaten fried 
fish and baked fish and broiled fish until I care not 
whether I ever even see a fish again. Let us travel on, as 
you say.” 

“Let us take some of these Chippewa neighbors of ours 
with us,” suggested Medart. “They will be useful as 
paddlers and as packers. They will serve well as guides, 
too, and even as interpreters. We may need this latter 
service before we come to the end of this summer’s wan- 


70 






THE SNOWY MOONS 


71 


derings. Our stores of furs will be safe here. When you 
saved Big Beaver’s life in the floating ice, you made every 
Indian here our faithful friend.” 

A few days later the expedition started. The canoes 
swept westward along the shore of the great lake. When 
its farthest western tip was reached the travelers turned 
northward. Then they guided the canoes up a river which 
led them on and on through wide lakes and past wooded 
islands. At last they left the water and, making packs of 
the things they would need, went on afoot until they came 
out on the edge of a country of rolling grasslands. 

Here Pierre, Medart, and their Indian companions 
turned back and again took up their paddles. They ex¬ 
plored more of the shore of Lake Superior and worked 
their way for many miles up some of the rivers that 
empty into it. Scores of flashing lakes and swift-rolling 
rivers they saw that long glorious summer, that no white 
man had ever viewed before. It was such a summer as 
Pierre had dreamed of during those unhappy weeks in 
Montreal. 

Early fall found the travelers again at the village of 
Big Beaver, on the southwest shore of Lake Superior. 
Their packs of furs and trade goods were exactly as they 
had left them. Big Beaver’s wife, with the help of some 
of the other Indian women, had fashioned complete new 
winter outfits for Pierre and Medart: heavy shirts, thick 
warm robes, durable moccasins and leggings. The In¬ 
dians of the village were sleek, fat, and contented. The 
fishing had been good, and never had there been a better 
crop of blueberries. 

“That big village of Ottawas down in the great forest 
is my choice. There the beaver and the otter should be 


72 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

plentiful. It would not displease me, either, to escape 
those nipping winds that blow across this lake in winter.” 

It was Radisson speaking. He and Groseilliers were 
discussing places that would be suitable for their trading 
during the coming fall and winter. 

“I have heard of no place that would suit me better/’ 
replied Groseilliers, as he turned from a pile of blankets 
he was making into a firm pack. “We can take some of 
our friends here for guides and packers. Next spring we 
can return here and barter for the skins Big Beaver and 
his men have taken; or, if that Ottawa town is not to our 
liking, we can return here sooner.” 

It was September when the two wanderers and their 
Indian friends set out southward for the Ottawa village. 
The two white men had learned early that in the north- 
land September is one of the finest of months for jour¬ 
neys in the woods. Strung out in single file the little party 
took a dim trail that soon led in among splendid pine 
trees. For miles and miles, crowding close along the trail, 
rose the stately forest. There was little underbrush, but 
high overhead spread the giant branches, making a dark 
green canopy that all but shut out the light. 

“Medart,” said Pierre in a hushed voice, “before I 
sailed from France I paid a visit to the cathedral at 
Rheims. It gave me a queer feeling. The saints seemed 
very near me; I trembled in spite of myself. Today, in 
this grand wood, I have that same feeling.” 

The two white men and their Indian friends traveled 
leisurely, making camp early each afternoon. They saw 
little game. In those dim solitudes there was no food for 
browsing animals, and no cover, near the ground, for 
fanged prowlers. Now and then, with the faintest of 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


73 


rustling sounds, a huge white owl would slide from his 
perch high above and drift silently away. 

In the late afternoon of the third day Pierre and Me- 
dart could see, through the thinning ranks of the trees, 
the silvery expanse of a large lake. 1 A few minutes later 
they came to the Ottawa village. Scattered about among 
the trees and along the shore of the lake were more than 
fifty wigwams. They were large and well built, their slop¬ 
ing sides covered with huge sheets of birch bark sup¬ 
ported by frames of poles. The low doorway of each wig¬ 
wam had for a door the pelt of some animal hanging 
loosely over the opening from the upper part of the door 
frame. A dozen campfires were sending up spirals of 
smoke in the calm late-afternoon air. 

The arrival of the travelers was greeted with much 
noise and excitement. The shrill screams of the Indian 
women mingled with the barking of many dogs. The two 
white men were the objects of an awed but very close 
scrutiny. It seemed plain that almost none of these In¬ 
dians had ever before seen a paleface. But there was no 
doubt that all the Indians of this village had heard about 
the two strangers who had passed the previous winter 
on the shore of the great northern lake. The solemn re¬ 
spect with which the village chief and his leading men 
now came forward to greet the visitors also made it clear 
that Big Beaver and his people had well advertised the 
power and might and general magnificence of their two 
white friends. 

“Now, indeed,” says Radisson in that quaint old jour¬ 
nal of his, “were we treated like gods.” 

Now came the present-giving. “We offered these 


Supposed to be Lake Court Oreilles, near Hayward, Wisconsin. 



74 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

gifts/’ Radisson states, “to the end that the Indians 
should remember that occasion; that we should be spoken 
of a hundred years after.” 

The gifts to the men were a kettle, two hatchets, six 
knives, and a “sword blade.” Radisson told the Indians 
what each gift meant. The brass kettle, he hoped, would 
always be filled with meat when the young men returned 
from the hunt. The women received twenty-two awls, 
fifty needles, two “graters” with which to clean the 
beaver skins, some vermilion paint, two ivory combs and 
two wooden ones painted red, and six little looking- 
glasses. 

“Throw away your bone bodkins,” he and Medart 
urged the squaws, “for here are needles for your sewing. 
And here, too, are paints for making yourselves beauti¬ 
ful and mirrors that you may admire your beauty.” 

After this the children were coaxed out of their hiding 
places, and pewter mugs, bells, and brass rings were 
tossed among them. What a scramble! Never before had 
there been such an evening in the wigwam village of 
these simple forest Indians. 

Next morning Pierre and two of his new friends went 
fishing. The blue irregular lake before the village was 
famous among the Indians for its big, hard-fighting fish, 
the muskellunge. 

A half mile down along the shore line of the lake Pierre 
noted a number of the Indian women, in canoes, pushing 
in among tall plants growing so thickly in the shallows 
that they soon hid the canoes and their paddlers from 
view. Pierre was interested, as he always was in every¬ 
thing new. 

“The squaws? Oh, they’re gathering the wild rice,” 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


75 


his guides explained to him carelessly, as they sought to 
steer the canoe on down the lake. But no, Pierre must see 
how it was done, and soon his canoe was in among those 
of the rice harvesters. 

The first thing he noticed was that the rice stalks had 
earlier been bent over and tied together in long and fairly 
straight “windrows,” but the windrows in this case were 
of growing rice stalks, and the clustered heads of the 
grain were fully two feet above the water. The squaws 
were busy pushing their canoes under these long clusters 
and beating on them softly with short flat sticks, bringing 
down showers of the long black kernels into the bottoms 
of the canoes. When the harvest was complete at one 
point, the canoes were worked forward beneath the clus¬ 
ters and the beating was repeated. While Pierre watched, 
the grain in the canoes mounted rapidly until the bottom 
of each canoe was covered several inches thick with the 
odd-looking rice grains. He was soon to learn what an 
appetizing, nourishing food this wild grain of the north¬ 
ern Indians made. Thereafter he seldom traveled about 
the north country without having in his packs a good 
supply of “Indian rice.” 

Pierre and Medart found the village on the lake a much 
pleasanter place to live than the bleak shores of Lake 
Superior. The Indians were friendly and there was prom¬ 
ise of good trade a little later. 

“Let’s pass the winter here,” decided the two. They 
went about among the wigwams, pulling aside the flap 
at each door and peering in. At last they found one a 
little cleaner and more comfortable than the others. It 
happened to be the home of an elderly couple. Radisson 
and Groseilliers moved right in, adopting the old people 


76 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

as their father and mother. At once the old man and his 
squaw became the envy of the entire village. 

Much feasting followed the arrival of the two great 
white strangers. Often when evening came on, the ban¬ 
queters were still at their repast. Moose meat and wild 
rice boiled together in the kettles; squaws darted back 
and forth from fire to feasters with fresh supplies; 
round-eyed papooses gazed in wonder from the edge of 
the circle of light made by the fire; lean Indian dogs 
scuttled about for the bones tossed out at random by 
those at the “banquet table.” All about were the stately 
pines with the first evening stars blinking down through 
the feathery branches. 

“Medart,” whispered Pierre, “would you exchange all 
this,” and he gave a sweep of his arm to take in the forest, 
the lake, the sky, the village, and the wild scene of which 
they were a part, “all this for the uneasy throne of His 
Christian Majesty, Louis the Fourteenth?” 

“Well,” said the cautious Medart, “at least not for the 
make-believe throne of the royal governor of Quebec!” 

There came a day when chill winds and a graying sky 
gave warning that the golden Indian summer was over. 
The tribesmen grew serious and businesslike. No more 
merrymaking now; it was time for the fall hunt. Equip¬ 
ment was looked over, rations were made ready, and the 
various parties were made up. In the next three or four 
weeks scores of deer, elk, moose, and bear, besides what¬ 
ever smaller game and fur-bearing animals might fall to 
the hunters, must be slaughtered, the meat borne to camp, 
the better hides carefully prepared for tanning. Not only 
must there be plenty of meat in camp for the long winter, 
but also a great store of hides for making into clothing, 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


77 


moccasins, cords and ropes, robes, and mats for the 
wigwams. 

Pierre and Medart quickly saw that they were not ex¬ 
pected to go on the hunt. They remained behind with the 
old men and watched curiously as the groups of hunters 
slipped silently away into the forest. When the distances 
to the kills were not too great, the strong young squaws 
were expected to bring in hides and meat from wherever 
the animals had been slain. More than once had the two 
white men marveled at the tremendous loads these Indian 
women could carry. 

The old men, left behind, were uneasy. Slowly the 
traders learned the cause of this feeling. It would be a 
hard winter, said the wise ones. Was it not true that the 
muskrat and that wise fellow, the beaver, had built their 
houses high and thick this fall? And whoever saw the 
moss on the north side of the ash as heavy as it was now ? 
They remembered, those old men did, what famine had 
come to their villages in years gone by, as the result of 
especially bitter winters. 

Besides—and here the mutterings were too low for 
Medart and Pierre to catch their drift—was not the fall 
hunt itself getting a late start? Surely, it was fitting that 
the two great white strangers should be received with 
high honor, as had been done. But did that call for all 
the weeks of idling and feasting that were but now 
ended? 

Aside from the harvested rice, dried berries, and small 
quantities of smoked fish, there was practically no food 
in the village. Spring was five months away. Everything 
depended on the success of the hunters. The old men 
shook their heads soberly and waited. The entire village 


78 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

waited; even Indian self-control could not hide the cloud 
of anxiety now resting on the Ottawa village, there in the 
north woods, as they waited for news from the hunters. 

By mid-afternoon of the first day of the big hunt sev¬ 
eral kills had been made. Groups of squaws had gone out 
to the nearer ones to do the skinning and to cut up and 
carry the meat back to the village. When the squaws came 
in with their heavy loads, just before dark, a few groups 
of hunters came with them. All the others, hunting at a 
distance, camped in the woods ready to go on early the 
next morning. 

The sight of the supplies of fresh meat that had been 
brought in—only enough, perhaps, to last the people a 
week—easkd the strain and worry that had borne down 
on the Indians all day. That night they talked and laughed 
around their campfires and listened to the adventures of 
the braves who had come in. When at last the people 
separated and went to their wigwams for the night, all 
their old cheerfulness had returned. 

But no, there was an exception. One old man who had 
shaken his gray head mournfully all day took no part in 
the gatherings at the campfires. That was old Sonnaquit, 
whose reputation it was that he was the oldest and wisest 
Indian in the village. On this particular night old Sonna¬ 
quit sat apart by a tiny fire, facing a bright display of 
northern lights. He spoke to no one. He scarcely moved. 
He seemed to be listening. 

“What ails the aged one?” whispered,the squaws. 
“Does he hear tonight the voice of the Great Spirit?” 

Pierre and Medart, when they got ready to go to bed 
in the comfortable wigwam they called home, took a last 
peep outside, and there still sat old Sonnaquit gazing into 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


79 


the north. ‘‘Poor ancient; his mind, like his body, is 
weak/’ they decided as they crawled into their warm nest. 

Yes, Sonnaquit was listening. What he heard was the 
voice of the storm king, of Winter, raging down across 
the great northern lake even then. Sonnaquit had heard 
that voice many times before, but tonight he heard a 
whispering undertone that was new. Something deep in¬ 
side his ancient frame trembled at that new sound, and 
he muttered to himself there in the night. 

Three hours later blasts of wind through the tops of 
the pines awoke every sleeper in camp. Those who looked 
out saw the smoldering campfires, whipped into new life, 
sending showers of sparks far out over the lake. Then 
the wind fell and there came hissing down through the 
branches of the pines a smothering, blinding blanket of 
snow. Snow? Uncomfortable for the hunting parties, 
of course, but helpful for the trackers. Thus thought the 
forest dwellers as they snuggled into their robes and 
again fell asleep. 

When in the dim morning light the Indians began 
creeping from their wigwams, they rubbed their eyes 
with astonishment. Snow! Never had they seen anything 
like it. In a few hours the leaden skies had dropped upon 
them a carpet of white so heavy that a man could barely 
struggle through it. Worse than this, the snow was still 
coming down so fast that an Indian eye could scarcely 
make out his neighbor’s wigwam, thirty feet distant. 
Hunting snow? Not this! Well did the Indians know that 
the moose and the deer, in the face of a storm like this, 
would desert their usual haunts and head into the deepest 
thickets, making necessary a new plan of carrying on the 
hunt. 


80 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Pierre and Medart, as they helped get morning fires 
started in sheltered places behind a dense thicket, ex¬ 
pressed their worry over the absent hunters. But no one 
else was worrying over the hunters. They would get to 
camp, all right. Were they not in groups? And would 
they not take turns breaking trail ? 

“But,” cried Pierre, “how can they find their way in 
this whirl of snow?” 

At this the old tribesmen smiled tolerantly and gave 
a little gesture which said, “Wait and see.” Sure enough, 
before dark the last hunter was safe in the village. Pierre 
then and there decided that, after all, he was still very 
much an amateur when it came to trailing through the 
north country. “Medart, my brother,” he exclaimed, “me- 
thinks there is much yet for us to learn from our red 
brothers.” 

Winter! The season most disliked and dreaded by all 
northern Indians. Indeed, the red man feared and hated 
the winter months so heartily that he had built, in imag¬ 
ination, a place where bad Indians went after death, pat¬ 
terned after the very worst winter he could conjure up. 
In this eternal place of punishment for the wicked, the 
spirit of the condemned groaned in the midst of ever- 
deepening snows and shivered in icy blasts that forever 
swept across the white waste. 

Any winter was bad enough. But this one! It had 
started three weeks early. If it had let up, if the snow had 
packed, a little extra exertion would still have supplied 
the camp with its winter’s provision. But once the snow 
began, it seemed never to stop. Down came the snow day 
and night—fine, white, feathery snow that would not 
bear the weight of a man even on his snowshoes. Hardy 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


81 


hunters tried it and staggered back into camp without 
having covered a mile. Landmarks were buried. The trees 
drooped under their white burden. Twilight lingered at 
midday. Forest and lake were dead and lifeless. Down, 
down came the snow. 

The two Frenchmen ana their Indian friends could 
only keep the fires burning and wait. Five months till 
spring—and in camp perhaps twenty hundredweight of 
rice, five hundred pounds of meat, a small supply of 
smoked fish, and a few bushels of dried berries. Food 
for five months for nearly three hundred souls! The old 
ones shook their heads and waited for a change. 

The change came. The snow ceased, the wind veered 
to the northwest, and cold set in of such intensity that no 
man could remember its like. The dry snow became still 
more feathery and incapable of bearing the weight of a 
man. The gray lake froze solidly over with a sheet of 
ice many feet thick. Before it froze, the Indian fishermen 
had tried for muskellunge, but these crafty monsters had 
already headed for deep water. When the freeze came, 
fishing holes were chopped, and men took turns watching 
them, spear in hand. They had small profit for their 
trouble. Soon the ice was so thick that the holes could 
no longer be kept open. 

Now came a time of slow, dragging days in the Ottawa 
village. Each day and each night was much like the one 
before it, only more gloomy and hopeless. The low winter 
sun gleamed each day from a cloudless sky, but there 
was no heat in it. Yellow “sun dogs” followed the sun. 
At night the northern lights flamed. Trees snapped with 
the frost. 

Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers, usually so 


82 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

full of ideas, so quick to meet some new situation, were 
as helpless as the Indians in the face of famine. They 
could only wait with the others, and slowly starve while 
they waited. The barter in furs ? The traders did not even 
open their packs of merchandise. 

“My Pierre/’ muttered Medart, as they shivered in the 
wigwam, “what would you not give to be safe in that 
little home of ours on the shore of the lake?” 

After three weeks of great cold the weather moder¬ 
ated, and down came the snow again. In the midst of this 
second blizzard old Sonnaquit turned his face to the cold 
wall of his wigwam and died. According to Indian belief 
the old man’s spirit found its way to a land of waving 
green trees, of soft mosses underfoot, of calm little lakes 
and tinkling rivers, all lighted and warmed by a sun that 
never forgot the ache in an old man’s bones. 

By this time the store of food was gone. The poor 
dogs began finding their way into their masters’ kettles. 
Moccasins were boiled and eaten; it is easier to endure 
cold than hunger. Radisson’s old journal tells how some 
of the feeble squaws clawed their way down through the 
snow, chopped roots from the frozen ground, cut them 
into bits, boiled them, and forced the lumpy mess between 
the lips of their starving papooses. 

Soon the fur-wrapped bodies of two score dead had 
followed that of old Sonnaquit, to lie in a silent row in 
the drifts at the edge of the village, while their spirits, 
let us hope, had joined his in the Happy Hunting Grounds 
of the red men. There was no fear even of wolves in 
such a winter as this. The wilderness of the north coun¬ 
try was a world of death. “Finally,” says Radisson, “we 
all became the very image of death.” 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


83 


Week after week the cold that followed the second bliz¬ 
zard held: five feet of snow and a temperature which our 
modern weather man would probably set down at fifty 
below zero, at its worst, and twenty below at its mildest. 

Then, suddenly—it must have been February by this 
time—the wind shifted to the southwest and blew balmy 
and sweet. All night the soft wind blew. Toward morning 
the feeble warriors pricked up their ears to a new sound. 
Rain! Raindrops pattering against the wigwam walls! 
How it rained! When morning came, those who had 
strength enough to crawl out and look saw the snow¬ 
drifts, dark with moisture, crumbling away, saw torrents 
of water rushing out from the wreckage of the snow to 
spread widely over the lake. 

Night came on again and with it still another change. 
Back slid the wind into the northwest once more, and 
the weather became clear and cold. Over the surface of 
the still-deep blanket of snow there formed that next 
night a solid crust, a crust that would hold a man in his 
moccasins. Such a crust is made to order for the winter 
hunter. 

That morning the warriors who could still walk gath¬ 
ered about a campfire and held council. Pierre and Me- 
dart joined them. The best hunter in the group was 
speaking. Over in the great swamp, two miles to the west, 
he argued, would be found deer or moose, perhaps both. 
It was a natural place for such game to “yard” in such 
a winter as this. It was a long way for starving men to 
travel, to be sure. But it was the surest way to end the 
famine. How many would go? Twelve men said they 
would try it, and they separated to make their prepara¬ 
tions. 


84 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

“How is this, my Pierre ?” said Medart. “How can 
these weak, giddy men, who stagger as they walk, hope 
to kill deer and moose even if they reach this swamp?” 

“My poor Medart, I know not/’ whispered Pierre as 
he looked at what seemed the ghost of his well-loved 
brother. “But this I know: if this wise hunter of the 
Ottawas says ‘go/ it means that there is at least a hope 
in this enterprise. For myself, I cannot stay behind while 
my red brothers go forth to the end that this starving 
time may cease for all of us. I go with them. But you, 
poor Medart, do you stay here. You have denied your 
food that I might stay fat and strong on what you did not 
eat. You are so thin and weak that you could never sur¬ 
vive this march to the swamp.” 

Medart propped himself on one elbow and gazed in 
astonishment at Pierre. “To think that I should come 
into this wild land with a man who speaks with a forked 
tongue, as the Chippewas say! When, pray, has a stray 
grain of rice or a strip of boiled buckskin that belonged 
to me found its way down your gullet? Pierre, methinks 
you are a great liar. And as for my feebleness and your 
strength: if I make a better ghost than you this day, then 
indeed am I ready to be laid out there beside old Sonna- 
quit and the others. If we needed not our strength in this 
business of catching a buck or two, I would test with 
you here and now this matter of who stays with the 
squaws because he is no longer a man. No, my Pierre, 
I go to the hunt. If we find moose or deer, I guarantee to 
bring down three for each one you are lucky enough to 
kill.” 

In the eyes of Pierre Radisson, and in those of Medart 
Groseilliers, there were tears as their thin, cold hands 
met in a long clasp of love and understanding. 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


85 


Fourteen men at length staggered away across the 
gleaming crust. Each man carried only his knife for a 
weapon. It was the hope of their leader that a deer or 
moose “yard” might be found near at hand in the big 



swamp. These animals “yarded” in a time of deep snow. 
That is, a band of them sought out a heavy thicket, and 
here by constant tramping back and forth kept a series 
of trails open. From these narrow trails the animals 
browsed on the overhanging twigs and branches and so 
kept life in their bodies. 

Sure enough, after a slow march in which three In¬ 
dians fell and were left behind, one of these yards was 
located, a deer yard. The deer could be seen feeding along 




86 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the trails. They looked weak and thin. At the sight of 
this poor food the Indians could scarcely be held back 
by their leader from an immediate rush forward. He 
made them creep along on all fours as they gradually 
edged in toward the yard. At last he was satisfied. The 
hunters were sheltered behind a low growth of spruce, not 
twenty yards from a section of the winding trail, where 
fully a dozen deer restlessly made their way up and down. 

Pierre, Medart, and the nine Indians lay on their backs 
for a time, panting with exhaustion, their eyes glazed 
with fatigue. At length, at a grunted command from 
the leader, the hunters sat up. Each Indian unwound from 
about his waist a small blanket or robe. At another word 
of direction the gaunt hunters got to their feet, seized 
two corners of their blankets, gave a yell, and, with 
blankets flapping wildly overhead, dashed forward. 

Those poor, foolish animals! Their safety lay in stick¬ 
ing to their beaten trails. But panic seized them as those 
yelling human beings bore down upon them. Madly they 
sprang in all directions out upon the glassy snowcrust. 
Almost at once the small, sharp hoofs of the deer cut 
through the crust and the animals sank down until their 
bodies rested on the frozen surface of the snow. Every 
effort to plunge forward only helped to fasten them more 
securely in their icy pillories. In a minute’s time every 
deer lay panting and helpless. The Indians, in their moc¬ 
casins, kept on the surface. Quickly they sprang for¬ 
ward, knives in hand. 

By nightfall more than a thousand pounds of venison, 
tough and lean but nourishing, was in camp. Solid food 
for the stronger ones, gruel for the weaker. With care, 
every person then alive made the change from famine to 
plenty in safety. The starving time was over. 


THE SNOWY MOONS 


87 


At last spring came again, the second spring for Radis- 
son and Groseilliers in the western wilds. Cheered by 
the warming sun the two began to make fresh plans for 
still wider travels in the wilderness. 

Questions on the Story 

1. What is wild (Indian) rice? How is it gathered? 

2. What were the causes of the famine in the Ottawa village? 

3. How was it ended? 

Things to Think About 

1. Several common Indian traits are illustrated in this story. 
What are they? 

2. The early fur traders were skillful in gaining the esteem of 
the Indians. Do you find “samples” of this skill here? 

3. The Lake Superior country was a good place to carry on the 
fur trade. Can you see why? 

4. How would you like to spend a winter in a wigwam ? White 
men who have done it state that they were fairly comfortable. 

5. The early Indians always made their greatest hunt in the 
fall. Can you see reasons for this? 

Things to Do 

1. Look up the poet Longfellow’s description of the starving 
time in his poem, Hiawatha. 

2. Draw a picture of the bark wigwam of the Great Lakes In¬ 
dians (not the western tepee). 












PIERRE RADISSON’S REVENGE 

npHEIR third summer in the land of many lakes found 
Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers busier than 
ever. Earlier they had visited the villages of the Sioux 
Indians, in what is now Minnesota. They held a great 
council with these stately warriors, whose hunting 
grounds stretched far toward the setting sun. Returning 
to their snug cabin on the edge of Big Beaver’s village, 
they stored there many packs of furs they had bought 
from the Sioux. 

“Now a trip down into the forest to the Hurons. They 
must have a great store of peltries, for they have scarcely 
shown their faces, so it seems, since they fled into the 
woods to escape the Iroquois.” Pierre was thinking aloud 
while Medart listened. 

“Yes,” Medart responded after a time, “one more 
march for fur and then home. Our packs of trade goods 
are all but empty. By August, at the latest, we must start 
down the lakes.” 

The two young traders, their faces long at the thought 
of turning their backs on the wild country about them, 
88 









PIERRE RADISSON’S REVENGE 


89 


looked at each other soberly. Very soon, though, they 
were so busy preparing for the trip to the Hurons that 
they forgot their gloomy thoughts. 

That journey down through the woods for a last lot 
of skins to complete the cargo for the eastern voyage 
came near being Pierre’s last journey anywhere. On the 
trail one afternoon he slipped and badly injured a leg. 
He could travel no farther. Camp was made at once. 
Medart, and the ten Indians with them, looked down 
sympathetically at Pierre where he lay on his blanket, 
in great pain but keeping all signs of this from showing 
in his face. 

“Pierre, when you are able to walk we will return to the 
lake. We have peltries enough, as it is,” stated Medart. 
“This hot bear’s grease will ease your pain,” he added, 
as he bent over Pierre. 

“No, brother, there is no need for a change in our 
plans. Leave me here with food for ten days. When you 
come back with the fur I shall be ready for the home 
trail.” 

No arguments would change Pierre’s decision. The 
next morning the others went on, leaving Pierre in a dry 
shelter of brush and logs, and with a cheerful fire crack¬ 
ling near by. 

That first night alone Pierre slept soundly, making up 
for the sleep lost the first night after his accident. But 
some time late in the night his own violent coughing and 
sneezing awoke him. He found himself half blinded, his 
eyes streaming with hot tears. The lean-to was all ablaze. 
At the very moment of his awakening, a charred, smok¬ 
ing log fell across his knees. He kicked himself free from 
it, all unmindful of that bad leg, and rolled free, at last, 


90 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

from the fire-swept camp. He lay back panting for breath 
and giddy with pain, while the fire finished its work. 

In the early morning light Pierre found that his pro¬ 
visions had been burned to a crisp, his gun ruined, and his 



other equipment charred and warped beyond use. Even 
the clothes he wore were so badly burned that they barely 
clung to him. He had a few painful burns on his hands 
and his knees. 

The prospect did not look cheerful for Pierre as he lay 
back against a log and thought things over. Medart and 
the Indians were getting farther from him every hour. 
At best, they would not be back within a week or ten 
days. In the meantime he must eat. 

Nine days later Medart led his Indians back to the 
spot. They came sweating under the big packs of prime 
beaver pelts they carried. There, near the burned lean-to, 




PIERRE RADISSON’S REVENGE 91 

they found Pierre, hustling about with only the slightest 
limp. He greeted each one with a hearty slap on the back. 
He looked fit and was gay and cheerful. 

The burned lean-to needed explanation. It was only by 
degrees that Medart wormed out of his comrade the full 
story of what had happened. Slowly he was able to piece 
together the story of the fire, and of what Pierre had 
done to meet his new problems: how he had saved a 
brand from the fire and had started a new campfire 
against the side of a boulder; how he had made a fish¬ 
line of fibres from the inner bark of a hemlock, and a 
hook from a fire-hardened twig, ground sharp against a 
rock; and how he had crawled back to the little stream 
that crossed the trail and there, with the help of a fat 
grub, had caught fish. Brush over a framework of poles 
had made a decent enough shelter. That bad leg Pierre 
had bathed whenever he went fishing; it was now almost 
as good as new. 

The two white men and their Indian packers soon took 
the homeward trail. They traveled slowly on Pierre’s 
account, but in a week’s time were back at the village of 
Big Beaver. 

Now came the preparations for the long voyage back 
to Montreal. Pierre and Medart had been on the lookout 
for some time for bold young Chippewa and Ottawa 
warriors who would be willing to make the trip. Only the 
stout-hearted, they knew, would venture down the lakes 
at that time. The timid and the cautious, when the 
traders asked, “Will you go with us on a visit to Onontio, 
the Great-White-Chief-of-Canada ?” 1 vigorously shook 
their heads. 

The western Indians could not be blamed much when 


lr The French governor. 



92 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

they refused to paddle the canoes of their two white 
friends down the lakes. Down there somewhere were 
those terrible Iroquois. More boldly than ever, so it 
seemed, were these fierce and cruel enemies of the west¬ 
ern Indians carrying their raids across the western canoe 
routes. One old Chippewa warrior explained the situa¬ 
tion to Pierre and Medart. 

“One time, far back,” said he, “all red men lived to¬ 
gether in peace. Then the white men came. The Indians 
south of your great river (the Iroquois) grew angry at 
your people on the river. They learned from some other 
white men how to shoot straighter and farther with a 
stick than any Indian could with his arrow. They made 
war on your people and on the Indian friends of your 
people. That war still goes on. Look about you. Here are 
Chippewas and Ottawas; down in the great forest there 
are Hurons; on the shore of the great southern lake 
(Michigan) there are Outagamies and Sauks. All, all, 
once had homes nearer the rising sun. Why are they here 
now, in the woods, moving their wigwams from place to 
place? Why did they desert their cornfields near the 
warm waters to the east and wander in the forest? I will 
tell you. Those bad Iroquois fought with us. Those of our 
people who were not killed fled in their canoes toward the 
setting sun.” 

“Lame Wolf,” Pierre questioned the ancient chief, “is 
there not peace now? Are not the Iroquois quiet in their 
villages?” 

“No Indian can answer that. The Iroquois are cun¬ 
ning. You, and my warriors who paddle with you, will 
not see the Iroquois on the big water. But faT over on the 
narrow water—look out!” 


PIERRE RADISSON’S REVENGE 


93 


At last, in spite of the “jumpy” nerves of their red 
friends whenever they thought about the Iroquois, Pierre 
and Medart had coaxed and bribed a large number of 
them to chance the long voyage. One hundred canoes 
headed eastward along the south shore of Lake Superior. 
Some of the bales of fur belonged to the Indian paddlers 
themselves; but the great part of the cargo, worth sixty 
thousand dollars, Pierre’s journal states, belonged to the 
two traders. 

They saw no Indians, friendly or warlike. The shores 
seemed deserted. The Indians noticed this and grew nerv¬ 
ous. Then one night, when the canoes had been drawn 
up on the shore, only a day’s journey from Lake Nipis- 
sing, Pierre and Medart discovered that they were on a 
recent battle ground. A short search revealed that on one 
side in the recent fight there had been white men, French¬ 
men, of course. No study was necessary to name their op¬ 
ponents. A large number of dead Iroquois warriors were 
scattered about in the brush. 

“Listen, my friends!” cried Pierre. “Let us lay aside 
our fears of the Iroquois. We shall see none of them. I 
know not for certain whether they won or lost this fight. 
But it is plain that their losses were indeed great. Our 
white brothers fought here bravely. The Iroquois fled 
from this spot, leaving their dead behind. They will not 
stop until they creep in shame into their villages. It is 
their way. Soon a great wailing will be heard in the 
wigwams of our enemies. Let us go on without fear.” 

Pierre was right. Not an enemy did the great flotilla 
see on the long waterway to Montreal. At last the canoes, 
with their heavy packs of fur, were drawn up safely on 
the beach near the town. 


94 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Safe? Don’t forget the profitable scheme of the rulers 
of New France. Those men had long memories. 

“Welcome home, Pierre Radisson and Medart Gro- 
seilliers. Long have you tarried in the wild lands. Ah, 
what furs; never before have come down the river such 
skins as these. And now, messieurs, your license, if you 
please? Of course, you had the license to trade in furs? 
What? No? So sorry, messieurs. It is really too bad, but 
we shall be obliged to take those wonderful peltries for 
the king’s government.” 

Can you hear the wily magistrate, who knows very 
well that there is no license, and who has been waiting, 
oh, so patiently, for the canoes of the two wanderers to 
come poking their way in to the beach at Montreal? 
Every beaver skin, every pelt of otter, of mink, of mar¬ 
ten, was confiscated. Pierre and Medart were home again 
—but what a homecoming! 

But he who laughs last laughs best. Pierre and Medart 
were angry and disgusted. They schemed and plotted. 
They scraped together some money. The last ship to drop 
down the St. Lawrence that fall, Europe-bound, had on 
board two young Frenchmen who would never have been 
allowed to leave the colony if the powers there had had 
the faintest inkling of what ideas were inside those two 
sleek black heads. 

When next we see Pierre and Medart, several months 
have slipped by. With their hair smartly curled, buckled 
shoes, silk hose, baggy knee trousers, and silken small¬ 
clothes, it is pretty difficult to make out our two friends, 
whom we are more familiar with in moccasins and loose 
fringed buckskin shirts, with long hair and unshaved 
chins and faces browned by wind and smoke. But Pierre 


PIERRE RADISSON’S REVENGE 


95 


and Medart they are, and, of all places, it is on the streets 
of London that we again come across the pair. 

If this surprises us, we shall be still more surprised 
if we follow them. For their briskly-moving figures lead 
us on and on, up one street and across to another, until 
finally they disappear through the doorway of a hand¬ 
some house in the fashionable part of the city. Within, 
if we manage to get that far, we see Pierre and Medart, 
the center of a circle of fine and distinguished-looking 
gentlemen. Some of them may even be of the nobility 
of England. 

On a big mahogany table are spread some large, crude¬ 
ly-drawn maps. The men sit on the very edges of their 
chairs while they listen with great attention to Pierre 
Radisson, Frenchman, late of New France in the western 
wilderness. 

“You, messieurs, desire to engage in the trade in pel¬ 
tries ? And you say that you cannot get to the region of 
good fur in America because the French bar the way. 
The French, whose grand river, the St. Lawrence, leads 
back and back to all the lands where swarm the beaver, 
the marten, and the otter. I will show you.” 

Hour after hour the great English merchants and the 
gentleman adventurers lean above those maps, follow 
Pierre’s pointing finger, and shower him and Medart 
with questions. At last the richest merchant in the group 
leans back in his chair. 

“Gentlemen, I am convinced,” said he. “I am sure our 
sailors can bring their ships safely into the great north¬ 
ern bay our friend here speaks of. Our traders and their 
helpers can build posts at the mouths of those rivers 
which reach down into the fur country now controlled by 


96 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the French. Our fur—and it ought to be excellent fur, 
coming from that cold north country—will reach the 
market over a route almost entirely a salt-water route; 
while our French rivals must get theirs by canoe over a 
lake-and-river route a thousand miles long. Besides, their 
St. Lawrence is frozen many months of the year, while 
our ocean route will always be open. I believe what this 
Frenchman has told us. Let us form a company to engage 
in the fur trade.” 

“And let us call our company the Hudson’s Bay Com¬ 
pany,” broke in another, “as our peltries will be gathered 
around the shores of that bay.” 

This was the beginning of the famous old trading com¬ 
pany that carried out its plans so well that it succeeded 
in building a fur kingdom in northern North America. 
Some of the finest and boldest men of Great Britain have 
come to America to spend their lives in the service of this 
great company. Indeed, you will find to this day the stores 
and posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company scattered wide¬ 
ly through the northern and western parts of the Do¬ 
minion of Canada. Truly, Pierre and Medart had their 
revenge on the selfish rulers of New France for the loss 
of that sixty-thousand-dollar cargo of fur. 

With this visit to England, the story of Pierre and 
Medart comes to an end. They lived on for years, and 
they had their adventures, yes. But the scraps of infor¬ 
mation we have concerning them are vague; their im¬ 
portant work as explorers and pathfinders was finished. 

Pierre seems to have spent much of his later life in 
England. At some time the notion came to him that his 
early adventures in the Great Lakes country were worth 
setting down. His journal was the result. 

Medart Groseilliers, it seems certain, drifted back to 


PIERRE RADISSON’S REVENGE 


97 


Canada. Let ns hope, for the peace of mind of his good 
wife, Marguerite, that he settled down to a safe and 
tame existence on the banks of the rushing St. Lawrence. 

Pierre Radisson loved this western country. He knew 
it and knew its red people at a time when neither had been 
touched or changed by the coming of white civilization. 
He observed the habits and customs, the work and play 
and warfare of the tribesmen, before these had undergone 
the changes brought by the white men. 

Pierre loved the land itself and would have prowled 
its trackless wastes had there been neither Indian nor 
beaver in them. He delighted in the grand lakes, the 
swift-flowing rivers, the old forest. To him we are in¬ 
debted for many of our earliest descriptions of the north 
country. To such a one as Pierre Radisson the long win¬ 
ters, the hard journeys, the privations along the trail 
were endured, not for the chance of gain alone, but for 
the opportunity to be free. To him it seemed pitiful to see 
this woodland paradise going to waste while, as he quaint¬ 
ly put it, “You Europeans fight for a rock in the sea 
against one another.” 

Pierre Radisson was prophet as well as observer. He 
prophesied that a day would come when happy civilized 
people would take the place of the roving children of the 
forest, and when teeming cities and thriving villages 
would overlook the waters where in his time the beaver 
and his furry neighbors swam about in the clear, cool 
current. 

* * * 

The work of Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers 
opened more widely than before the eyes of the rulers 
of New France to the value of the western country. They 


98 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

realized that they were on the threshold of an inland 
empire of fur. The key was in their hands. They began 
bending their energies to make the most of the situation. 
Devoted Frenchmen turned to the task of learning the 
Indian dialects, of acquiring the knack of Indian oratory, 
of fitting their ways to Indian customs. 

Soon the farthest wigwam village grew familiar with 
these pleasant Frenchmen, who so gently wooed the 
friendship of the haughty warriors. Back of it all was 
one fixed idea: fur—fur for the markets of Montreal. 

Questions on the Story 

1. Why did Pierre and Medart have such a hard time in getting 
Indian paddlers for the trip back to Montreal ? 

2. What became of the fur cargo? 

3. Were the experiences of the two adventurers in the wilder¬ 
ness of any later value or importance ? 

4. Why did Pierre and Medart go to England? 

Things to Think About 

1. Radisson and Groseilliers had many good qualities. Do you 
consider that patriotism was one of them ? 

2. Which title, “trapper” or “trader,” is the correct one to apply 
to these two young Frenchmen? 

3. After reading these “Pierre” stories, do you have a higher 
or a lower opinion of the Indians than before? 

Things to Do 

1. Make an outline covering the voyages and adventures of 
Pierre Radisson. 

2. On a blank map write, in the proper place, the names of all 
Indian tribes mentioned in these stories. 

3. Look up in an encyclopedia, or in some other book, an ac¬ 
count of the Hudson’s Bay Company. 

4. Organize a talk on this subject: “How the Early Fur Trade 
Was Carried On.” Give your talk before the class. 


IN THE LAND OF MANY 
WATERS 













KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


HIS portion of the French monarchy,” wrote Jean 



Talon, one of the great officials of New France, 
“will become something grand.” Talon set down his 
prophecy in the year 1671. He was speaking of the lands 
lying about the shore of Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, 
and Lake Superior; about the thousands of miles of for¬ 
est country whose rivers fed the St. Lawrence and the 
Father of Waters. 

This was the country Jean Nicolet had first visited. 
A few missionaries had wandered through parts of it. 
But only two white men at that time knew well the west¬ 
ern wilderness. They were Radisson and Groseilliers, 
who had come back from their wanderings ten years 
earlier. 

All Frenchmen knew the value of the west in terms of 
beaver skins. They had profited greatly from the peltries 
brought down by the Ottawas whenever the route from 
the far western wilderness was open. That famous sixty- 
thousand-dollar cargo of those two rascally fellows, 
Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers, had whetted 


101 




102 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the appetites of the great ones of New France for more 
of those rich western peltries. 

Jean Talon saw in the new lands these fresh and grow¬ 
ing profits; and he saw fresh glory for himself and a 
brighter glitter to the crown of his master, Louis XIV 
of France, if the west could be welded firmly to the col¬ 
ony on the St. Lawrence. He knew what to do: win and 
hold the friendship of the Indians along the pathways to 
the new lands. He laid his plans. 

First of all, out along the western route went a single 
canoe. In it sat Nicolas Perrot. He carried a message to 
all the western Indians: the Great-White-Father-across- 
the-Sea loved them all and desired their presence at a 
great council to be held just above the lower rapids of 
the Sault. Perrot knew his business. The red men liked 
this grave and friendly messenger. How solemn he could 
be as he smoked the peace pipe with them! How dignified 
as he delivered his message! How friendly as he ate the 
feast of the green corn with them! Yes, they would come 
to the council at the Sault. 

The French proudly boasted that red men from seven¬ 
teen tribes were at the great meeting. There were Otta- 
was, Chippewas, Sauks; Hurons, Winnebagoes, Potta- 
wottamies; Menominees, Noquets, Crees. The Indians 
stood in an opening in the dark forest and faced toward 
the water foaming along the Sault (the “Soo” Ste. 
Marie, which drains Lake Superior). They were dressed 
for the occasion, their bodies greased and painted, their 
heads crowned with feathers or horns, necklaces of 
bears’ claws about their necks, and costly fur robes 
thrown carelessly over their shoulders. 

Then Indian ears heard a new sound. Out from the 
little mission house the French had built there, came a 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


103 


procession of “black robes.” They were chanting a Latin 
hymn. Behind these Jesuits came a dozen or more traders 
in buckskin shirts and gay sashes and tasseled caps. Per- 
rot marched with these. At the rear, marching very sol¬ 
emnly, came a figure the like of which the red chieftains 
had never seen. In a white-and-gold uniform he came, 
with lace and jewels and a naked sword and a glittering 
helmet bearing the lilies of France. Not an Indian could 
take his eye from that gorgeous being. It was St. Lusson, 
sent by Talon to stand as the emblem of France on this 
great occasion. As such St. Lusson was a huge success. 
The red men were almost overpowered by his presence. 

On a little hill in front of the Indians the procession 
stopped. While the Jesuits chanted, a cross was raised 
and blessed. Next, a pole bearing the royal arms of 
France was set up. The Indians looked on in awe, and 
almost broke and ran for the woods when traders raised 
their guns and fired a salute. 

St. Lusson in his finery next strode forward. Stooping, 
he took up a bit of earth which he held high in his right 
hand while he shouted, “In the name of the Most High, 
Most Mighty, and Most Redoubtable Monarch, Louis, 
the Fourteenth of the Name, we take possession of the 
said place Sainte Marie du Sault and all other countries, 
rivers, lakes, those discovered and to be discovered, 
bounded on one side by the Northern and Western Seas, 
and on the other side by the South Sea, this land in all 
its length and breadth.” 

Nicolas Perrot then stepped forward and explained to 
.the dazed chiefs that they and all their people had just 
become subjects of the king of France. So far the “coun¬ 
cil” had been a one-sided afifair. 

Next came the gift-giving. Great packs of presents 


104 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

were opened. Out came cloth, knives, mirrors, brass ket¬ 
tles, blankets, hatchets. Here was something the Indians 
had expected. They were not to be outdone, either. At 
the feet of St. Lusson they piled a great heap of otter 
and marten and beaver pelts. 

After the chiefs had made their marks on a paper, 
and after a night of feasting around a roaring bonfire, 
the Indians took to their canoes and started back to their 
villages. The proceedings at the Sault had all been very 
puzzling, but magnificent, too. When the red men re¬ 
membered the fair words they had heard, and most of 
all when they fingered the bright calico or the shiny 
hatchets they had received, they decided that everything 
was all fight. They would be friends with these white 
men. 

Soon such “black robes” as James Marquette and 
Claude Allouez were at work among the western Indians, 
trying to make Christians of them. Hard-paddling Louis 
Joliet came, and La Salle of the mighty dreams, and 
Henry Tonty, his helper. Scores of other heroic French¬ 
men came to the west and gave their lives to make St. 
Lusson’s words at the Sault something more than mean¬ 
ingless sound. 

The Indians liked these Frenchmen. They turned to 
trapping as their chief occupation. With the peltries they 
could buy the wonderful things in the traders’ packs. 
They forgot to tend to their corn patches and wandered 
about setting their traps. 

These white men from the St. Lawrence were wonder¬ 
ful fellows. How straight they could shoot, and how 
tough and hardy they were on the trail, almost as good as 
the Indians themselves. The speeches of these white 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


105 


friends at the council fires sounded good to Indian ears. 
How willingly some of them put on the ceremonial attire 
of their red friends and danced with them the tribal 
dances. Many of these white friends and brothers never 
went back at all to their*old homes, but took wives from 
among the Indian maidens, set up their own wigwams, 
and became adopted members of the tribes. This was an 
honor, surely. The western Indians were proud and sat¬ 
isfied. 

But there was one tribe of red men whose chiefs and 
warriors could see nothing but evil for all Indians in 
this coming of the white strangers. They called them¬ 
selves the Outagami, but are better known as the Foxes. 
Where these Foxes got their ideas about the white people 
it would be hard to explain. But very early they had 
made up their minds that all white men were a bad in¬ 
fluence on the Indians. 

The Foxes sent no representatives to that meeting at 
the Sault. They felt sure that the tribesmen of the lakes 
and rivers and forests would be better off if they went 
on living just as they had always lived. If a bow and 
arrow had been good enough for their fathers to bring 
down a deer or an enemy, it was good enough for them. 
If a sharpened stone was all that was needed in the old 
days for cleaning and dressing peltries, it was all that was 
needed now. If the fathers had lived without drinking the 
“firewater” that the palefaces brought with them, then 
could they also live without it. As for the black robes, 
they appeared to be the best of the paleface lot; but surely 
the manitou of the Indians was greater than any supreme 
being these black robes had to offer them. 

So it came about that the first traders who reached 


106 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the villages of the Foxes got few peltries for their pains; 
and the good missionaries—they were forced to go back 
and report sadly that these Foxes were a sour and flinty- 
hearted lot who looked on coldly and indifferently while 
the fathers performed the beautiful ceremonies of the 
church. To the Frenchmen the Foxes were a queer and 
disappointing tribe. 

At that time, this unfriendly people was living in vil¬ 
lages along the Wolf River, in the eastern part of what is 
now Wisconsin. They had had trouble with other neigh¬ 
boring tribes and had been pushed away from the shores 
of Lake Michigan. They were a poor and weak tribe 
then, having lost many of their fighting men in the wars. 
Their corn grounds were small and poor. They lived 
chiefly by hunting and fishing. But the chiefs of the 
Foxes never gave up the idea that some day their tribe 
would be big and strong again. One of the ways to bring 
this about, they felt sure, was to stick to old-fashioned 
ways and leave the white men alone. They stayed close 
to their own villages. They took great pains with their 
boys, training them to grow up as tough, hardy fellows, 
afraid of nothing. The years rolled by and, sure enough, 
the Foxes grew strong again. Some of the nearby tribes 
were bigger, but none were equal to the Foxes in battle. 
They were a sober, grim lot, and whatever they did they 
did with all their might. The Foxes were disliked by 
many and feared by all. 

Well, when the day finally came that saw the Foxes 
again powerful, news came to them that angered them 
against almost everybody, but particularly against the 
French. When the Foxes had moved to their home on the 
river, a great many of their kinfolk had moved the other 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


107 


way, across the lake, to live in what now is Michigan. 
This part of the Fox nation traded with the Frenchmen 
at their post at Detroit. This seemed to work out well, 
and they got the idea that things would be still better if 
they moved down and camped near the white men’s fort. 
This they did. 

Now the French had become so used to having all the 
western tribesmen do just as they were told that they 
were not pleased with these sour-looking, independent 
Foxes. When a fight broke out between the Foxes and 
some other tribes living near the fort, the French sided 
with the latter tribes. Together they gave the Michigan 
Foxes a terrible defeat. Many of the Foxes were killed 
or taken prisoners. Those who escaped—men, women, 
and children—fled as best they could across the strait at 
Mackinac and down into the woods, to tell their tale of 
woe in the wigwams of the main Fox villages on the 
Wolf River. 

This main branch of the tribe had been almost certain, 
all along, that no good would come from mingling with 
white people; now they were sure of it. They began to 
hate all Frenchmen, and every Indian of every tribe that 
had helped in the massacre there at Detroit. The chiefs 
called a grand council, and it was decided to go on the 
warpath against all their enemies. They danced around 
the war post for many days, striking their hatchets into 
it as deep as they could. They smeared their faces red 
and black, made ready their bows and arrows, gathered 
provisions, and went out to fight the rest of the world. 
It was not long before the rulers of Canada and the great 
traders of Montreal and Quebec knew what a war with 
the Foxes meant. Not a canoe load of fur came down 


108 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the great river from the west. It was almost sure death 
for a white trader to venture into the woods around Lake 
Michigan. The Indian enemies of the Foxes dared not 
leave their villages to hunt and trap. If a party started 
from one river to another along the portage path, these 
terrible Foxes were lying in wait for them. As often as 
not the voyageurs would be killed and scalped and their 
outfits destroyed. The fur trade dwindled to almost noth¬ 
ing. 

The governor of New France sent armies all the way 
from Montreal to drive away the mad Fox war parties. 
But the warriors fought back, or slipped away out of 
sight, only to turn suddenly on small parties of the enemy 
and gather in more scalps. For the French it was like 
fighting a shadow. The whole western country echoed 
with the sounds of the war. The dim old forests, the roll¬ 
ing lakes, the brawling streams no longer saw the red 
men and the white cheerfully gathering in the harvest of 
fur. Instead, hate and fear and dread brooded over the 
wilderness as the fighting Foxes spread their deadly 
warfare across the fur kingdom. 

Among the war chiefs of the Foxes, strong and brave 
as they were, one stood out above all others. In planning 
the attack, in the sudden wild dash upon the enemy, in 
the long marches, in the silent ambush beside the trail, 
Kiala was first among the Fox chieftains. Kiala thought 
long and bitterly about the woes of his people. Kiala 
looked back and saw how contented the red men had been 
before these pale-faced strangers came up the lakes and 
rivers from the place of the rising sun, bringing with 
them all these strange new goods and gods and notions. 
Kiala looked ahead into the future and saw a time when 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


109 


all the ancient hunting grounds of the Foxes, the Sauks, 
the Ottawas, the Menominees—the lands of every tribe 
of red men—would swarm with these strangers. Then 
would the fish and the game vanish. Then would the 
white strangers take the corn grounds of the Indians 
and trample on the graves of their ancestors. Then would 
the red men vanish also. Kiala saw all this as in a vision. 
He made up his mind—just as so many chiefs did, at 
one time and another, after Kiala’s day—that it was 
time for red men everywhere to rise and press the white 
people back to that place from which they swarmed in 
ever-increasing numbers. “Rise now, before it is too 
late.” That was the thought in Kiala’s burning brain. 
This was to be no war between Foxes and Frenchmen; 
this must be a fight to the death between the red owners 
of the land and these wily white invaders. 

The Fox chief started out to carry his message of 
warning to the other tribes. He visited villages of Win- 
nebagoes, of Chippewas, of Sauks, of Menominees. He 
showed the chiefs how the tribes which had once planted 
great fields of corn now spent all their time hunting and 
trapping, little better than the slaves of the Frenchmen. 
Kiala’s words were believed—at least while he spoke 
them. The tribesmen made promises. They said they 
were ready to join together under Kiala’s leadership and 
make war on all palefaces. Kiala was sure that the great 
hour for the red race was almost at hand. 

Poor Kiala and his dreams! The Indians of his day, 
like those of later times, did not know how to act to¬ 
gether. One tribe feared and suspected other tribes as 
much as it feared and suspected the French—often much 
more. Not many Indians could see into the years ahead 


110 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

as Kiala did. More than all this, they were as change¬ 
able as the wind. Just when a tribe agreed to follow him 
on the warpath, the French would creep in with presents 
and promises, and the warriors would go on trapping for 
the French. Then some of the tribes which remained 
steadily loyal to the Fox chief began the war too soon. 
This warned the white men of the widespread plot 
against them, and they hurried to crush the movement be¬ 
fore it got a good start. Out into the west came strong 
parties of soldiers and Indians friendly to the French, to 
guard the portages and save the scattered posts from cap¬ 
ture. Away hurried the smoothest-tongued of all the 
French agents to carry a message of peace and good will 
to the wavering tribesmen. Right and left went the pres¬ 
ents for powerful chiefs. When the time came that Kiala 
had set for the beginning of the great attack, he and his 
Foxes had to start this new war alone. Even the tribes 
that had promised to help now turned on the Foxes and 
helped hunt them down. 

The Foxes were driven deep into the forests, away 
from the lakes and streams. Once their enemies came 
over the winter drifts on snowshoes and routed them out 
of their winter camp and killed warriors, squaws, pa¬ 
pooses. At last the fighting remnants of the Fox nation 
found themselves pushed far down into the Illinois 
country. 

Now far to the east, in the splendid country south of 
Lake Ontario, still dwelt the Iroquois. They still held 
their heads high as the best and boldest warriors in all 
the land. But long years of warfare had thinned the 
fighting ranks; they were in need of recruits. Somehow 
the Iroquois chieftains heard about these hard-battling 
Foxes of the west. They heard, too, about the undying 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


111 


hatred of the Foxes for all Frenchmen. So it came about 
that one day as Kiala was sitting in his wigwam wonder¬ 
ing what move to make next, in stepped messengers from 
the far-away Iroquois inviting the Foxes to march across 
country and join the eastern tribesmen. It was a proposal 
that needed much thinking. Kiala called a council. 
Around went the pipe. The Foxes smoked solemnly. Then 
they talked. Then the messengers talked. At last it was 
decided: the Foxes would go. 

Kiala and his chiefs realized the perils and hardships 
ahead. Food was scarce in the Fox camp. The squaws 
and papooses must be taken on the journey of nearly eight 
hundred miles to the Iroquois country. They would have 
to go on foot and through the woods. They collected their 
meager possessions and started. 

The French soon found out what was going on, for In¬ 
dian enemies of the runaways were eager to give infor¬ 
mation. Orders were issued and the French and their red 
helpers began closing in on Kiala’s band from every side. 
When Kiala realized that his people were being sur¬ 
rounded, he ordered a halt on the bank of a river in east¬ 
ern Illinois. Here the Foxes worked like beavers to build 
a fort of logs and dirt. When their enemies came up to 
the attack, the Foxes drove back the attackers with vol¬ 
leys of arrows. After that, the French and their allies 
settled down to a siege of Kiala’s fort. Before long the 
Foxes were living on the bark of trees. Something had 
to be done. Rain fell ceaselessly, and the moon was ob¬ 
scured by clouds. Kiala resolved to escape from the fort 
in the dark, try to dodge his enemies, and push on east¬ 
ward with his people toward the distant long houses of 
the Iroquois. 

All day the miserably cold and wet Fox warriors 


112 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

fought from behind their log-and-dirt wall and kept their 
enemies off. Late that night, in rain and inky darkness, 
the tired braves gathered the women and children to¬ 
gether and bundled up their few remaining belongings. 
Then like ghosts they climbed over the east wall of their 
fort and crept away across the prairie in the dark. “In¬ 
dian file” they went, right past some of the camps of 
their sleeping enemies. When they were almost past, and 
Kiala began to think they were going to get away, some 
poor little cold and hungry Fox papoose set up a wail. 
Indians are light sleepers. Up started a warrior from 
near one of the smoldering campfires. His whoops soon 
roused thq whole camp of Kiala’s enemies. 

That cold, miserable, rainy night became a night of 
terror and death. Kiala, of course, hurried his people 
forward as fast as they could run. But with the women 
and children to be looked after, the progress of the braves 
was slow. They began to lose one another in the pitch- 
black night. Soon they were only a loose mob of people 
scurrying for safety in all directions. But there was no 
safety anywhere for the Foxes that night. The French¬ 
men sent their Indians and the Canadians after the flee¬ 
ing Foxes with orders to kill. On came these pursuers, a 
torch in one hand, a war club in the other. To them it 
made little difference whether the fugitive they caught 
was a man or a woman; down came that war club just the 
same. Widely across the dark prairie spread the wreck¬ 
age of Kiala’s people. 

But even the fierce pursuit failed to account for all the 
Foxes. Some of them—among them Kiala himself— 
made their escape and wandered, half dead, back toward 
their old Wisconsin home. They were still hunted like 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


113 


wild animals. The Fox chief was in despair. What could 
he do to save the rest of his people? Finally he made up 
his mind that there was just one thing to do. He got out 
a canoe he had hidden away safely before he led his band 
eastward. He caught fish and smoked them; he dried a 
supply of meat. These things he stored carefully in his 
canoe. Then solemnly he said his farewells to the few 
warriors he still had with him, stepped into his canoe, and 
paddled away down the river toward the big lakes. What 
was the meaning of this journey of the lone canoe of the 
chieftain? 

Night after night Kiala paddled on. Day after day he 
hid himself and his canoe in the bushes. He was Kiala, 
the Fox chief, and he knew right well that his life would 
not be worth a pinch of powder if his many enemies ever 
picked up his trail. But never once did Kiala falter as he 
pushed down the lakes and down the St. Lawrence, far¬ 
ther and farther into the country of his enemies. 

Kiala was on his way to see the “white chief” of New 
France himself. Kiala was on his way to give himself up 
to the white men. If he did that, thought the chief, then 
his people would be forgiven and permitted to live in 
peace in their old home on the river. What the governor 
would do with Kiala himself—well, the solitary paddler 
wasn’t thinking much about that. 

The lonely canoe of Kiala finally nosed its way up to 
the beach near old Quebec. Kiala was frightened. Never 
before had he seen such sights. But he was a chief, and 
he walked proudly among the jostling palefaces who 
turned to look curiously after him. The people of the 
growing town were used to Indians, but seldom had they 
seen a chief so tall and straight and solemn as this one. 


114 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

He at last made some soldiers understand where he 
wanted to go, and they, good-naturedly, showed him the 
way toward the governor’s house. If there had been the 
faintest suspicion as to who the tall Indian was, Kiala 
would never have reached the place he sought. Soon the 
governor, curious about the visitor who had been an¬ 
nounced, summoned Kiala before him. 

The chief of the Foxes! The great man could scarcely 
believe his ears when he was told the identity of his visi¬ 
tor. He beamed with delight. At last that long and ex¬ 
pensive war would be over. He, the new governor, would 
get the credit, and his name would be mentioned favor¬ 
ably at tfte court of his king. What a day was this! Here 
was that terrible Kiala, giving himself up. 

What a pretty story this would make if we could go 
on to relate how the governor forgave Kiala and his war¬ 
riors, how a solemn treaty was made, and how Kiala, 
loaded with gifts, paddled back to the remnant of his tribe. 
But sadly must it be said that the story does not end that 
way at all. 

The governor called the soldiers of his guard and had 
the Fox chief thrown into the gloomiest dungeon in his 
prison, to lie in chains until a ship sailed for the French 
West Indies. On that ship went Kiala, sold into slavery 
on a sugar plantation. Poor Kiala! Can you picture him, 
so used to the wild free life of an Indian in the brisk 
climate of the lakes country, toiling as a slave in the hot 
sugar lands of a tropical island? He died a slave—and 
soon. No northern Indian could stand that sudden 
change. 

Up and down the lakes and streams ran the word of 
the fate of Kiala. The chiefs of those tribes so lately help- 


KIALA’S SACRIFICE 


115 


ing the French to wipe out the Foxes smoked thought¬ 
fully. Might it not be that what was happening to the 
Foxes would happen to them next? Were these white 
men such good friends, after all? Was Kiala right when 
he had said that only evil would come from the presence 
of these palefaces? In all the country of the lakes the red 
men began to see that these smiling Frenchmen, despite 
all their fine talk, could be harsh and cruel when some 
tribe stood in the way of what they wanted to do. 

At this time the tribe of the Sauks was living near the 
place where the Fox villages had been. When the rem¬ 
nant of Kiala’s people straggled back from that wild 
night of massacre on the dark Illinois prairie, many of 
them went to live among the Sauks. A little later a party 
of French soldiers arrived, still bent on killing the last 
of the Foxes. The soldiers sent a demand to the Sauk 
chief that all Foxes living in his villages be given up. 

Here was a problem. The Sauks wanted no trouble 
with the white men. But how, how could they violate the 
sacred law of Indian hospitality? After all, there was 
only one possible answer to that demand of the French 
soldiers. The Sauks could not turn over the Fox refugees 
to be killed or sold as slaves. They said so. They even 
said that they would guarantee the future conduct of 
the Foxes. In vain: the soldiers said they must have those 
Foxes at once. There was a fight, the French commander 
was shot through the heart by a twelve-year-old Indian 
boy, the soldiers were driven back, and the Sauks and 
Foxes fled up the river together. The French came on 
again and there was more fighting. 

In the earlier war, when so many of the tribes were 
on the side of the French, many Foxes had been taken 


116 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


alive. These had been held as prisoners in various Indian 
villages ever since. Their captors, friendly and sympa¬ 
thetic now, looked the other way while these prisoners 
“escaped.” The moment they were free, these scattered 
Foxes sped straight to their fellow tribesmen with the 
Sauks. Soon the warriors of the combined tribes made a 
dangerous band of fighting men. The Frenchmen had a 
greater war on their hands than ever. Now it was the 
turn of the white men to find the western country almost 
too hot for them. Even their Kickapoo guides led the 
French armies astray, and it became a case of starve 
or hurry back to their forts. At last the governor sent 
word to the Foxes that they might live where they 
pleased; the war was over. 

But the Foxes and their friends, the Sauks, had had 
enough of the French. They decided to keep away from 
the lakes and streams that led back toward Canada and 
the whites. So they settled in western Illinois and eastern 
Iowa, and soon the two tribes became virtually one peo¬ 
ple. They became strong and prosperous once more, with 
splendid hunting grounds around them, and fine big corn¬ 
fields along the Rock River . 1 For another hundred years 
the Foxes had their wish: they lived their lives as the 
Great Spirit meant red men to live, almost as if the white 
man, with his trade goods, and his demand for fur and 
more fur, and his rum, had not yet set foot in all the 
western wilderness. It was what Kiala, dying alone in 
his hot island prison, might have wished for his peo¬ 
ple. 


1 In 1830 one of the greatest Indian towns in all America was the Sauk- 
Fox town near the mouth of the Rock River, in Illinois. It was the residence 
of the famous Sauk chief, Black Hawk. 



KIALA’S SACRIFICE 117 

Questions on the Story 

1. How did the French rulers in Canada seek to win and hold 
the good will of the western Indians? 

2. How did Kiala and his Fox tribe of Indians feel about the 
coming of the white men? 

3. What caused this tribe to go on the warpath? 

4. Why did the chief Kiala make the long voyage to Quebec? 

5. What was the later history of his people? 

Things to Think About 

1. Would you say that the French were selfish, or unselfish, in 
their dealings with the red people? 

2. From what you know about the later story of the Indians, 
would you say that Kiala was a far-sighted leader? What other 
chiefs that you have read about saw in the future the same things 
Kiala saw and feared? 

3. Does this story show how important, in the eyes of the 
French leaders, the fur trade had become? 

Things to Do 

1. Look up the story of the travels of Father James Marquette. 

2. Report on the founding of Detroit. What does the name 
mean? 

3. Try making a cartoon to bring out the idea back of St. Lus- 
son’s meeting with the tribes. 












THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


Q UEBEC was the first French post on the St. Law¬ 
rence, and the strongest. The fort on its high, 
rocky bluff frowned down on the river below and on the 
country for miles and miles around. There the French 
governor lived. From there went out the orders to sol¬ 
diers, traders, canoemen, farmers—all were directed in 
each thing they did by the government at Quebec. Most 
of the orders and directions that passed on up the river 
had to do with the fur trade. 

New France had grown since the days of Talon and 
Perrot, in square miles more than in people. It was still 
an empire of forest and Indians and fur. The worries 
of the great men of the colony began and ended in the 
matter of keeping the route open for the pelts of beaver, 
and otter, and marten on their downstream journey from 
the western country. 

Years slipped by, many of them, and each brought a 
thickening cloud of troubles for the far-flung wilderness 
kingdom of the French. The Hudson’s Bay Company, 
off to the north, cut in on the pelt harvest in that direc¬ 
tion. The Fox wars, too, had disturbed the fur trade, and 
had cost much in lives and money. Worst of all, the Eng¬ 
lish, along the southward-reaching coast, disputed the 
French claim to much western land. 

118 





THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


119 

At last the quarrel with England deepened into war, 
several wars. When the last and greatest of them was 
ended, not a foot of land in dispute, not a foot on all the 
North American mainland, belonged to France. All the 
land of lakes and rivers from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
frozen North, and west to the Mississippi, passed to the 
ownership of the English. The flag of England flapped 
from its staff above the fort at Quebec. 

As the new English governor of Canada sat in his 
office, the door opened and a visitor was ushered in. The 
governor looked up and saw a stocky Englishman with 
an earnest face and keen blue eyes. 

“Well, what can I do for you?” asked the governor, 
General Gage. 

“General Gage, my name is Alexander Henry,” was 
the reply. “I wish to get a permit to trade in the western 
country.” 

“Yes,” answered the governor, “now that the French 
are gone our traders are anxious to get the trade in 
peltries out there. Of course, they will have it, too. What 
else is there in this new colony of ours worth having? 
But you traders are in too big a hurry. Wait.” 

“But why? The Indians will trap; they know nothing 
else. Some one should be there to buy the fur,” Henry 
replied. 

“Those Indians out there,” went on the governor, 
“scarcely know that the war is over. They know the 
French are gone, but they don’t recognize us as their 
new rulers. I allowed one trader to go out there. I’ve 
felt ever since as though I had given him a permit to go 
into a den of wolves.” 

“But I’m ready to take all the risks in this 'den of 
wolves/ as you call it.” 


120 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

“Well, all right, then/’ was the answer, after a min¬ 
ute’s thought. “But, Mr. Henry, I believe you’ll lose 
your trade goods before you have been a week at Macki¬ 
nac. Our handful of soldiers now in the west can’t pro¬ 
tect you in that whole country. Your scalp, too, will be 
none too tight on your head at any time. Remember, 
you’re an Englishman. Here’s your permit, then, and 
good luck. You’ll need it.” 

Alexander Henry hurried away to buy canoes and a 
stock of goods, to get himself a good outfit of clothes and 
weapons, and to engage canoemen. The canoemen he 
hired were Frenchmen and half-breeds. They were not 
bothered by the news about the restlessness of the tribes¬ 
men along the western lakes, for they were old friends 
of those Indians. 

Two weeks later Henry and his men started westward. 
They traveled in six large canoes, each of which carried 
packs of the usual goods used in the fur trade. In the 
leading canoe sat the trader, his quick eyes taking in the 
changing scenes along the river banks. You would scarce¬ 
ly have known Henry. Silk hose, stock, powdered wig, 
buckled shoes, smallclothes were gone; buckskin shirt, 
leggings, moccasins had taken their places. In Henry’s 
belt were a pistol and a knife. A good English musket 
rested across one of the packs within easy reach. 

The little fleet moved swiftly up the river on the long 
voyage. Strong backs bent, sinewy arms slipped skillful 
paddles in and out of the sparkling water. The spray 
thrown from the prows of the canoes glistened in the 
bright spring sunshine. Each night the voyageurs lifted 
the canoes from the water at some long-used camping 
ground along the way. Cooking fires were built. Over 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


121 


these the canoemen baked a kind of coarse bread from 
cornmeal mixed with bear’s fat. Now and then they had 
tea for a beverage. 

While this cooking was going on, one of the men, 
Baptiste, the most experienced of the voyageurs, went 
over the bottoms of the canoes carefully to see whether 
the pitch on the seams had been worn thin anywhere. 
When spots were found that seemed to promise a leak 
on the morrow, he heated a pot of pitch and laid it on 
thick and hot over the thin and worn places. By the time 
these duties were over it was dark. The men unrolled 
their blankets, burrowed snugly into them, and, with 
their feet to the campfire, got ready for seven hours’ 
sleep. A little after daylight the camp was astir, and half 
an hour after that, in rhythm with some old boating song, 
the paddles were again sending the canoes forward 
against the strong current. Henry must have marveled 
at the cheerfulness of his canoemen who toiled through 
the long days for him for a wage of eight dollars a 
month. 

Where the waters of Lake Huron meet those of Lake 
Michigan the shores on either side draw toward each 
other, leaving only a strait between: the Strait of Macki¬ 
nac. Today, when we think of Mackinac we are apt to 
picture stately ships coming to anchor there, while 
crowds of well-dressed holiday visitors swarm ashore to 
go climbing about the bluffs, or to swim at the beach, 
or to sun themselves along the glistening sands. 

When the trading canoes of Alexander Henry put in 
at Mackinac, after their long voyage, the scene was a 
far different one. To begin with, the Mackinac of that 
far-off day was on the opposite shore of the strait. The 


122 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

ships, the sight-seers, the curio shops—none of those 
things had so much as been dreamed of then. As Henry’s 
canoes approached the southern shore, the trader could 
see, first, a British flag flapping above the low log walls 
of a fort. As he drew closer he could see that the fort 
covered quite a plot of ground, the walls of the stockade 
enclosing a drill ground and a number of log buildings. 
A score or so of canoes and plank scows were drawn up 
on the shore near the fort. Back in the groves of pines 
and birches, in all directions, clusters of wigwams could 
be seen. 

When the canoes of Henry finally slid up into the 
shallows, and the trader himself jumped out on the beach, 
a hundred or more Indians were grouped there watch¬ 
ing curiously. He had difficulty in making his way 
through the crowd to the fort. The letters he had brought 
obtained for him a hearing with the commander at Mack¬ 
inac, and shortly afterward the trader had the satisfac¬ 
tion of seeing his trade goods safe inside the stockade and 
within the walls of a stout log cabin. 

“There!” thought Henry. “My biggest and hardest 
job is over. Here are my goods, and here am I, safe in¬ 
side the walls of Mackinac.” 

But deep inside him there was a little stirring of doubt 
and misgiving that he could not entirely drive away. 
Those Indians out there! How bold and insolent they had 
seemed! 

With his goods safely stored, Henry started out to get 
acquainted with his new home. First he noticed that, 
while the fort seemed strong enough, only a handful of 
British redcoats were there to defend it. Two or three 
of these were always on the lookout platforms on the 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


123 


top of the stockade. In and about the fort, Henry saw, 
were a dozen or more families that seemed to have their 
homes there. These, Henry knew, were families of 
Frenchmen who had married Indian women and who 
were now living there with their half-breed families. 
These people seemed to laugh and talk a great deal. They 
were light-hearted and gay. They went about in cos¬ 
tumes of buckskin, with bright, tasseled caps on their 
heads and red-and-blue sashes around their waists. It 
was easy to see, from their sidelong glances at the sol¬ 
diers, that these redcoats of England were far from wel¬ 
come at this old French outpost. 

One among these permanent dwellers at Mackinac, a 
swarthy man with piercing eyes, and with a military 
bearing, seemed quite a hero to the others. This man was 
Charles Langlade, half-breed leader of the western In¬ 
dians. Every one about the place, except the soldiers, 
seemed to take orders from him. 

Henry observed that there were Indians everywhere. 
They lounged before their scattered wigwams, squatted 
in moody silence about the stockade, and eyed the sol¬ 
diers grimly. 

The English trader’s first few hours at Mackinac did 
not diminish his deep feeling of anxiety. There was a 
strained, watchful attitude about the soldiers; they acted 
more like men in a trap than soldiers of a garrison. As 
for the Indians, while they appeared interested in Hen¬ 
ry’s goods, he himself had a feeling, when those sour 
warriors looked at him, that they were altogether too 
much interested in his scalp. Then, too, these Frenchmen 
and their half-breed families seemed “hand-in-glove” 
with the wigwam-dwellers outside. To Henry it was 


124 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

plain that he, an English trader, was going to have a 
hard time building up a good trade. 

The English trader spent his first few days at Macki¬ 
nac strolling about, talking with soldiers off duty and 
with some of the white men living there. From here and 
there he pieced together the reasons why the Indians 
were so sullen and unhappy. 

To these western Indians—Chippewas, Ottawas, Pot- 
tawottamies, Menominees, Shawnees—it seemed as 
though the world, their world, had come to an end. They 
were bewildered and discouraged. They had fought side 
by side with their brothers, the Frenchmen, against the 
redcoats and the “big knives” (Americans). They had 
brought back many scalps, too, from that fight at Fort 
William Henry. Almost every Chippewa warrior had 
come home from Braddock’s Field the owner of a red 
coat he had stripped from a dead English soldier, that 
time when Langlade had led them to the rescue of Fort 
Duquesne. And yet, in spite of it all, in spite of all the 
victories, the little log forts where their French brothers 
had lived had been deserted one by one. From each the 
French soldiers and “black robes” and traders had pad- 
died away soberly toward Quebec. To be sure, they had 
promised to come back just as soon as the Great-White- 
Father-across-the-Sea wakened from his strange sleep. 
But what a long sleep that had been! Their French broth¬ 
ers had not returned. 

No, the French did not come. But in their places had 
come these hated redcoats, these Englishmen. 

“When our French brothers were among us,” so went 
the usual complaint, “they put on the war paint and 
danced in our war dances. They struck the war post with 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


125 


their hatchets, even as we Indians do. They married our 
young squaws and lived in the wigwams of the red men. 
But these Englishmen! When our warriors dance, they 
look on with scorn or turn their backs. Never once do 
they lift the flap at the doorway of our wigwam and step 
inside. Never can we call these cold Englishmen our 
brothers.” 

The chief of the Ottawas at this time was Pontiac. 
He knew well how to talk to the unhappy, puzzled In¬ 
dians about him. He slipped from wigwam to wigwam, 
from village to village. Always he dropped the same 
word: “Rise, rise up against these strangers. With torch 
and tomahawk drive them into the great waters where 
the sun rises.” 

Pontiac’s plot was laid carefully. The Indian secret 
was well kept. The warriors of a hundred scattered vil¬ 
lages were to rush upon the English when Pontiac gave 
the signal. 

A “den of wolves,” Governor Gage had called that 
western country. Alexander Henry was in it. 

Henry tried to keep his nationality to himself, at first, 
and put his affairs in the hands of his French assistant. 
But one of his canoemen must have talked, for the next 
day one of the residents at Mackinac rushed up to Henry 
exclaiming: 

“Monsieur, monsieur, you can not stay here. These 
Indians are a bad lot. They will take from you all your 
trade goods. They will drink the rum and then they will 
become mad and they will come here and kill. Slip away 
to Detroit, monsieur, while yet there is time. There the 
garrison of soldiers is strong.” 

But Henry shook his head. There was much truth, no 


126 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

doubt, in what this Frenchman said. But Henry was 
stubborn, and besides, he more than half suspected that 
these residents at Mackinac were jealous of him and of 
all English traders, and wanted to scare them out of the 
country. 

The trader gradually wormed his way into the confi¬ 
dence of the people of Mackinac. The Indians, too, when 
they had fur, brought it to him for barter. Henry sent, 
in the care of his assistant, several canoeloads of goods 
up and down the lakes and streams. He made a long trip 
himself, over the route to Lake Superior, and he hunted 
and fished and made friends where he could. His vague 
feelings of dread left him, and he began to feel that his 
venture was off to a good start. The weeks slipped on 
and the rumors of trouble died away. Up and down the 
country of the lakes was peace and quiet. Henry began 
to dream of the wonderful trade he would have when 
the next season of trapping rolled around. 

Among the hundreds of red men who came and went 
at Fort Mackinac was one tall, strong Chippewa who 
attended strictly to his own affairs. This was Wauwatam. 
He spent no time loafing about the fort; he left the white 
men’s rum alone. More than this, Wauwatam was not 
much excited over what that wild Pontiac had been 
scheming. Wauwatam believed that his people would be 
better off if they accepted these redcoats quietly and got 
on with them as best they could. This quiet, good Indian 
was a great hunter and trapper. He had a fine wife and 
four papooses in his wigwam on a small island. He took 
good care of them. 

Wauwatam was not a chief, he had no reputation or 
fame, and it is only by the merest chance that we have 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


127 


this opportunity to know him. That merest chance was a 
dream. Yes, Wauwatam had had a dream. Years and 
years ago, it was, that this particular dream had come to 
Wauwatam. In this dream the Great Spirit had come in 
the dark and had hovered over Wauwatam, then only a 
boy, and had announced to him that some day he must 
adopt an Englishman as his brother. Of all possible 
dreams, that seemed the wildest at the time. At that time 
Wauwatam had never even seen an Englishman. Besides, 
were not all Englishmen his enemies, his and his French 
brothers’? An Englishman his adopted brother! Wau¬ 
watam was ashamed of that dream and breathed of it to 
no one. But it stuck in his memory and even grew to a 
place where he brooded on it as on some command that 
must be obeyed. 

Here now was Wauwatam, a man of family, and here 
were Englishmen at Mackinac. That dream grew and 
grew in the mind and heart of Wauwatam, the Chippewa. 
Eagerly though secretly he gazed on these new arrivals 
at the fort. He did not like them; he liked Frenchmen 
better, yet he must look and try to find one Englishman 
he could adopt as his brother. Not one did he see. He 
was sure that the Great Spirit never meant him to adopt 
one of these soldiers. The time of fulfillment of the dream 
seemed still far away. So thought Wauwatam as one 
day he started from the fort down to the beach where he 
had left his canoe. A shadow crossed his path. He looked 
up, and there was his Englishman. He knew it the minute 
he set eyes on the stranger coming toward him. You 
have guessed, of course, that this was Alexander Henry. 
Henry nodded and smiled at the tall Indian and went on 
to the fort; Wauwatam sprang into his canoe and 


128 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

paddled off toward his wigwam. Little did the trader 
guess what wild, surging feelings he had stirred in the 
heart of the red man he had just passed. 

Back came Wauwatam to Mackinac again and again. 
He put himself in Henry’s way and they became ac¬ 



quainted. The more the Indian saw of his Englishman, 
the better he liked him. He knew it would be that way. 
At last he told Henry of his dream. They were sitting 
alone at the time in the trader’s cabin. Solemnly Wau¬ 
watam unwrapped a parcel. Inside were some handsome 
peltries, smoked meat, and maple sugar. 

“Will you,” the Indian’s gestures said plainly to 
Henry, “accept these furs as a present ? And will you eat 


















THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


129 


of the smoked meat and the maple sugar with me ? I, Wau- 
watam, ask you to become my brother." 

Henry liked Wauwatam. Here was a good Indian, he 
knew. Why not humor the Chippewa in his odd whim? 
So then and there the two men, one red and one white, sat 
down together, and ate together and smoked in turn the 
same pipe. Many a grunt of huge satisfaction from Wau¬ 
watam, many a smile of friendliness on the face of 
Henry. After that Wauwatam returned happily to his 
wigwam. From that day on a close, warm friendship 
bound together the white trader and his brother Wauwa¬ 
tam and Wauwatam's family, Little Weasel and the four 
papooses. 

The weeks passed. One afternoon Henry looked up 
from the work of sorting some furs to see standing in 
his doorway Wauwatam, his brother. Today the dark 
face of the Chippewa was sober, as his eyes looked plead¬ 
ingly into those of the trader. 

“White brother, tomorrow, early, we go quick away 
from here. Go across lake. You go with Wauwatam. The 
evil birds talk. The evil birds tell me bad Injins here 
make heap trouble. You come quick tomorrow." Wauwa- 
tanTs dark face came as near to showing just how 
anxious he felt as an Indian's face is likely to show. 

“But, Wauwatam, I can't go tomorrow. My clerks and 
I must check up our goods. I can't come. Why should I 
go anywhere tomorrow, Wauwatam? Everything’s 
peaceful here now." 

Wauwatam looked sadder still. He looked as if he 
wanted to talk, to tell some important news. But all he 
did was to repeat, “Evil birds tell me bad things happen 
here. Come cross lake with me." 

But Henry, deaf to his Indian brother’s appeal, stayed 


130 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

on at his work. At length Wauwatam turned sadly away, 
got his family ready to travel, and next morning paddled 
away to some distant point on the north shore of the 
strait. 

Evil birds! Henry was to think about them again be¬ 
fore many hours had passed. 

The morning had dawned clear when Wauwatam and 
his family paddled away from Mackinac, leaving Wau- 
watam’s adopted brother behind. The light mist over the 
lake had soon blown away in little curly wisps. Small 
waves splashed musically along the shore near the walls 
of Fort Mackinac. The wigwams of the Indians, scat¬ 
tered among the groves, showed early signs of life. Potta- 
wottami and Chippewa warriors, through with the break¬ 
fasts their squaws had set before them, were swarming 
over the clearing near the fort. The warriors seemed 
dressed with unusual care, and little gleams of excite¬ 
ment showed in beady black eyes. The soldiers, looking 
on from the walls of the stockade, watched eagerly the 
wild, changing scene before them. But they were not 
worried over what they saw. There was much excite¬ 
ment, to be sure, but then there was a good explanation 
for all that. On the'evening before, the leading chiefs had 
sent in word that today there was to be a grand athletic 
event. The Pottawottamies and the Chippewas were go¬ 
ing to play a game of bagittaway—lacrosse, the French 
called it. Of course, the coming game accounted for all 
this hurry and scurry and excitement among the tribes¬ 
men. So the soldiers looked on interestedly and waited 
for the game to begin. 

After much jabbering, the rival chiefs lined up their 
teams in the long strip of cleared ground near the main 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 131 

gate of the fort. There were dozens of Indians on each 
team. Each one carried a stout stick, at the end of which 
was a small wickerwork, basket-like affair large and deep 
enough to catch and hold a ball. It looked somewhat like 
an undersized tennis racket. A ball was used in the game 
of lacrosse, and this the Indians could catch and throw 
with their lacrosse sticks quite skillfully. The point of 
the game was to work the ball down the field toward the 
opponents’ goal. Whenever the ball was thrown by means 
of the lacrosse stick and struck this post a score was 
counted. 

The ball was thrown up in the center of the field, there 
was a wild rush, and the game was on. The ball flashed 
through the air. The players surged after it. Back it 
came. How the squaws and children who lined the sides 
of the field shrieked! The watching soldiers became ex¬ 
cited, too. The play swept close to the side of the stockade 
and a player shot the ball far and high over the wall to the 
parade ground. There was a pause while a soldier chased 
the ball and threw it back to the players outside. On went 
the game. After a few minutes over whizzed the ball 
again, and again a soldier tossed it back over the 
stockade. 

“Well, why not let the players get their own ball?” 
thought the commander of the fort. He ordered the gate 
to be left open. Soon afterward the ball again landed in¬ 
side. In rushed the Indians—and then the shouts of the 
lacrosse players changed to the shrill, high, quavering 
war whoop of the western Indians. Their “game” had 
accomplished its purpose. Out from beneath blankets or 
shirts flashed scalping knives. War clubs twirled. Scores 
of Indians who had been “spectators” at the make-believe 


132 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

game dashed in through the open gate, weapons in hand. 

What could that little squad of surprised, scattered 
soldiers do ? They were outnumbered ten to one. In vain 
did they try to close the massive gate. In vain did they 
try to form in line and beat back their assailants. 

Alexander Henry was in his cabin working at his ac¬ 
counts. He heard that sudden war whoop, those confused 
thudding sounds, a scattering musket volley. From his 
doorway he saw the fighting redcoats go down one by 
one. He saw a few, still alive, hurried ofif as captives. 
Henry dashed into his cabin, seized his musket, and 
leaped back to the doorway. One look, and he tossed the 
weapon back inside the cabin. No use to resist; the fight 
was as good as over. The matter now was to think of 
some means of saving his own life. Around the corner of 
his own house he slipped, and clawed his way desperately 
over a fence that separated him from a larger cabin. It 
was, as Henry knew, the home of Charles Langlade. 

This was a war against Englishmen; well did the 
trader realize that. Langlade could save him, probably, 
if he chose to use his great influence over the Indians. 
But would he? Perhaps the French and half-breeds were 
back of this sudden attack? No time to think that over 
now. Into the Langlade house dashed Henry. Langlade, 
dragging his eyes from the terrible scenes outside, looked 
at the trader, shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, 
“What can I do?” and turned back to the window. But 
an Indian servant girl beckoned to Henry and pointed up 
the attic stairway. Did it mean escape or a doorway into 
a trap? Again Henry did not stop to reason it out. Up 
the stairs he bounded and crawled hurriedly into a dark, 
musty corner of the garret. Through a crack he saw the 
last acts in the awful tragedy outside. 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


133 


A few minutes later there was a rush of moccasined 
feet down below, a volley of questions, and then quick 
feet on the rickety stairs. The savages had learned of 
Henry's hiding place and were coming to kill him. Poor 
Henry squirmed along under the eaves and burrowed his 
way under a litter of scraps of birch bark and old 
mococks, 1 and lay still. His pounding heart, he was cer¬ 
tain, would be distinctly heard by the four excited In¬ 
dians who now crowded into the little attic to hunt him 
down. But, coming in from the bright sunlight, they were 
baffled by the gloom of the attic. Passing so near Henry 
that he could have reached out and touched them, they 
somehow failed to discover him. Grunting disgustedly, 
they were down and away in search of other victims 
easier to find. The trader breathed again. 

Henry waited for a time in his dark corner. He could 
hear the exultant yells of the Indians, but these now 
seemed at a distance; in and around the Langlade house 
all was quiet. The trader started to crawl out of his dusty 
corner. At that moment he heard the heavy door down¬ 
stairs creak loudly on its hinges as it was pushed open. A 
sudden clamor of harsh Indian voices filled the house. 
Again the attic stairs gave their warning. Henry dived 
back into the dark corner under the eaves. It was of no 
use. This time the Indians seemed sure that the English 
trader was hiding somewhere in that attic. They searched 
carefully, and at last a sinewy hand touched his shoulder. 
There was a savage grunt, and in a moment the white 
man was dragged from his corner down the stairs and 
out into the sunlight. A brawny Chippewa, his hands and 
war club already dyed with blood, raised his weapon to 
strike, but the blow did not fall. Some whim—perhaps 


1 Baskets made of bark. 



134 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the thought of the trader at the torture stake—had 
changed his mind. 

Alexander Henry lived in terror for the next three 
days. He was a prisoner along with a few others whose 
lives had been spared on the day of the massacre. The 
excited Indians, with the victory won, began to quarrel 
and squabble among themselves. The rum they found 
made them still uglier. The poor prisoners were huddled 
together in an old hut, not knowing for a moment in ad¬ 
vance what fate had in store for them. Henry saw seven 
of the poor fellows dragged away at different times and 
tomahawked. Some of the more sober warriors took 
Henry back to the parade ground with them one after¬ 
noon. Here a drunken savage rushed at him with a cruel 
knife. Henry broke away and dodged and zigzagged in 
and out among the loitering Indians, at last saving him¬ 
self from his pursuer by again dashing into Langlade’s 
house, a place which even a drunken Indian dared not en¬ 
ter alone. 

Henry was then placed in a canoe and taken to an 
island where many of the Chippewas were encamped. 
Here there was a stake driven into the ground with a big 
pile of wood at hand. The poor trader, sick and trembling, 
was led toward it. Here, at last, was his fate. In the nick 
of time came a great party of Ottawas claiming Henry 
as their prisoner. The Ottawas out-argued their allies, 
the Chippewas, and back went Henry to the fort. The 
Chippewas followed, there was another great debate, 
and the white man was again handed over to the warriors 
from the island. 

“Will this awful nightmare never come to an end?” 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


135 


thought the despairing Henry. “This looking at death, 
day by day, is worse, even, than death itself. There is no 
escape for me; why, then, do not these savages kill me 
and make an end of it?” 

Perhaps Henry sometimes thought of his Indian 
brother, Wauwatam, during those awful days. At any 
rate, Wauwatam thought of Henry. At early evening of 
the day when the Chippewas again had Henry as their 
prisoner, a lonely canoe glided to the shore not far from 
the great Chippewa camp. Out of it stepped Wauwatam. 
In his arms he carried a bundle made up of an assort¬ 
ment of prime, glossy peltries—the choicest and rarest 
Wauwatam had ever taken in all his trapping days. How 
carefully they had been stretched and tanned! How soft 
and pliable they were! Not one of them had ever been 
offered for sale. And why? Because they were to go into 
the making of a “best” suit for Wauwatam. Oh, not a 
Sunday suit to go to church in, of course, but a suit to 
be worn in the ceremonial dances of his tribe: the ghost 
dance and the corn dance. This very summer, had it not 
been for all these troubles, Little Weasel would have 
made that suit. 

Soberly Wauwatam lifted his bundle from the rock 
where he had carefully placed it while he pulled up his 
canoe, climbed the steep bank, and took the trail toward 
the nearest cluster of wigwams. Up he stepped at last to 
the wigwam of Mudjikewis, the great Chippewa chief, 
raised the flap, and stepped inside. 

Alexander Henry, trussed up like some wild animal 
over at the far side of the Chippewa village, was startled, 
that same evening, to hear the sudden rolling boom of the 


136 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Indian drums. Soon he saw blanket-wrapped forms hur¬ 
rying toward the center of the village. A few minutes 
after that, four warriors came to him in the darkness, 
loosed the buckskin thongs that had been eating into his 
flesh, and led him toward the spot where the men were 
assembling. “Another council!” groaned poor Henry as 
he saw the dark circle of warriors gathered about a small 
fire, old Mudjikewis there with the others. “I wonder 
what’s up now?” and a shiver of fear ran through him. 

Then of a sudden the heart of the trader gave a great 
bound. There in the circle opposite the chief sat Wauwa- 
tam. What could it mean? 

Solemnly passed the council pipe around the circle. 
Then Wauwatam arose, threw back his blanket, and be¬ 
gan to speak. 

“My friends and brothers, what shall I say? You know 
how I feel. Would you like your brother to be a slave? 
But see, there is my white brother, a slave. You all know 
that long before this big fight I adopted him as my 
brother. Because he is my brother he is your brother, too. 
When you sent me across the lake so I would not tell the 
red soldiers your secret, I went because you gave me your 
promise that you would protect my brother. I am here to 
ask you to make good that promise.” With that Wauwa¬ 
tam resumed his seat in the circle. 

Around went the pipe once more. The light from the 
fire, flickering across the swarthy faces of the warriors, 
showed them as quiet and expressionless as so many 
masks. It seemed to the trader, watching anxiously from 
just outside the circle, that the warriors had heard no 
word of Wauwatam’s speech. 

Then Mudjikewis rose to speak, crafty old Mudji- 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


137 


kewis, who had received as a gift, only an hour before, 
a bundle of priceless furs. 

“What you have spoken, Wauwatam, is the truth. I am 
glad that your brother is still alive. You may take him 
to your wigwam.” 

There were grumblings from that dark circle. But 
their chief, Mudjikewis, was a great chief, indeed. His 
word was law. The council broke up. An hour later 
Henry was resting comfortably in the wigwam of Wau¬ 
watam and Little Weasel. His many wounds and bruises 
were made easier by the quick, careful hands of the kind 
Indian woman. 

The Pontiac rising against the English died away. The 
Indians, despite their many victories, grew impatient, 
then discouraged. Those stubborn redcoats clung to their 
forts, or when they lost them, came back with more men 
and more guns to get them back. Some tribes began the 
war before the day set by Pontiac. Others were tardy in 
digging up the hatchet. Some forgot to fight at all. The 
poor Indians! The plans of their far-sighted leader were 
too great for them to carry out. 

In all that wild year of attack and retreat, of ambush 
and surprise, few indeed were the incidents where the 
tribesmen showed one half the keenness in planning or 
one half the boldness in carrying out the plan that they 
displayed at Mackinac. But even there the flag of Eng¬ 
land soon waved again. At the end of a few months the 
fighting men of the Ottawa, the Chippewa, and of the 
other northern tribes had laid aside tomahawk and scalp¬ 
ing knife to take up again the beaver trap and the fish 
spear. The war was over. As for Pontiac himself, he 
wandered off into the Illinois country, still dreaming, per- 


138 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

haps, of how he would yet drive out the hated English¬ 
men. There a man of his own race, hoping to win the 
special favor of the redcoats, shot him down. 

Now if you picture Alexander Henry, after this first 
bitter taste of fur trading in the west, hurrying back to 
civilization, and to easier ways of making money, then 
you have altogether the wrong idea of him. As soon as 
he could, he gathered fresh supplies, trade goods, canoes 
and voyageurs, and away he went into still newer and 
wilder lands. Flashing paddles carried him to the shores 
first seen by Radisson and Groseilliers, on Lake Superior. 
He found the Indians there eager for the wares of the 
white man, which war had shut out of their country for 
so long. The stout-fibred Henry soon had scores of them 
again out on the trap lines. 

In time he wandered on and on, far out among the 
winding lakes and rivers north and west of Lake 
Superior; on until he met Indians from the plains who 
came to him for the trading mounted on wiry ponies. 
Forever pressing along fresh trails, forever sitting in 
solemn council with strange new tribes, forever doling 
out his wares in exchange for the glossy pelts of the 
beaver and the otter—that was the life of Alexander 
Henry during the years following the rising of the fol¬ 
lowers of Pontiac. 

And Wauwatam? Good Indian that he was, let us hope 
that he soon strutted in the tribal dances of the Chip- 
pewas decked out in a ceremonial costume at least as fine 
as the one that was to have been made from the peltries 
that went to old Mudjikewis in exchange for the life of 
his adopted brother. So far as the records state, 
Alexander Henry never again saw Wauwatam after 


THE DREAM OF WAUWATAM 


139 


those tragic days following the game of lacrosse at old 
Fort Mackinac. When the trader recalled those bloody 
scenes, his opinion of the red men must have been low 
indeed. When, in his wanderings, he saw the filth and 
meanness and cruelty in the red men’s way of life, he 
must at times have sickened with disgust. Then a memory 
would arise to wash away those earlier feelings and 
again make him more patient and kindly toward his red 
neighbors: the memory of that steadfast red brother of 
his, the kind, brave, faithful Chippewa, Wauwatam. 

Questions on the Story 

1. Why did the Indians dislike the English, who came to rule 
them after the great Treaty of 1763? 

2. Why did the new English governor call the western country 
“a den of wolves”? 

3. Describe the Mackinac of that day. 

4. By what trick did the Indians capture the fort? 

5. How was the life of the trader, Alexander Henry, saved? 

6. What later experiences did he have? 

Things to Think About 

1. Do you feel like blaming the Indians for the confused, re¬ 
vengeful feelings they had at that time? 

2. Is the behavior of Wauwatam what you would expect from 
an Indian? 

3. Do you think the English were likely to be as successful in 
their fur trading as the French had been? 

4. Which do you think is the better name for this story: the 
present one or “A Game of Lacrosse”? 

Things to Do 

1. Look up the story of the Ottawa chief, Pontiac. 

2. Point out on a wall map the parts of North America which 
belonged to England in Alexander Henry’s time. 


140 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


3. Find out all you can about the island of Mackinac: when a 
fort was built there, the later history of the island, why it is an 
interesting place today. 

4. Draw a detailed map of the Strait of Mackinac, showing the 
islands and the interesting places on the adjoining shores. 








THE PRINCE OF THE FUR 
MERCHANTS 

LETTER from Heinrich! A letter from Heinrich!” 



1 ** A young German boy in the village of Walddorf, 
Germany, was waving a yellow envelope excitedly before 
his father. No wonder he was excited. Heinrich, the 
bold, the adventurous, over in that land of wonders, 
America, had sent another letter—Heinrich, who had 
joined the Hessians to go to fight those terrible colonists 
of England’s who, for some crazy reason, wanted to rule 
themselves. Not that Heinrich had cared anything about 
the causes of that war. Like all other Hessians he knew 
nothing at all about that, and cared still less. Nor was it 
that simple Heinrich had wanted to kill anybody. He 
only knew he wanted, oh, how he wanted, to get to 
America! So away went Heinrich, with all the other 
Hessians, on a big ship, his passage paid for him. That 
last was the important point about the whole war in 
Heinrich’s mind. 

Now if you are going to imagine Heinrich charging 
the poor colonists there on Long Island, or in the Battle 


141 







142 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

of Bemis Heights, or at Monmouth, his bayonet flash¬ 
ing in the sun, his face set in the grim business of killing 
American patriots, then you are mistaken. For the most 
part he bumped along at the tail of the army over those 
rutty American roads on the sutler’s wagon. His job, 
whenever the army stopped, was to dole out rum and 
tobacco to the fighting men. Not very glorious, after all, 
was it? But then, it doesn’t matter, because this story is 
not about Heinrich at all. It’s about that young brother of 
his in Walddorf, the boy with the letter. 

That letter, and several before it, had come from Hein¬ 
rich after Heinrich’s soldier days were over. First the 
family in Germany had learned that the soldier was not 
coming back home; that he had decided to stay in 
America as he found the people there not so terrible, 
after all. A little later came another letter saying that 
Heinrich had settled in New York and had gone into the 
butcher’s trade. That last was little to be wondered at, 
for Heinrich’s father and Heinrich’s father’s father had 
been butchers. Then another letter arrived saying that 
Heinrich was prospering, that he was making money. It 
seems that these queer Americans had speedily forgotten 
all about the fact that Heinrich had so recently been their 
enemy, one of those terrible Hessians. They liked his 
broad German smile, so it seemed, and they liked his 
cuts of meat. So Heinrich was prospering. He was mak¬ 
ing money and he was going to be married, and the city 
was growing fast, and a man in that wonderful country, 
so he said, could make of himself what he would. 

Each time these letters came from America, there was 
much excitement among the members of the family at 
Walddorf. Sometimes, too, the villagers gathered to hear. 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 


143 


the letters read. Heinrich’s father would shake his head 
doubtfully over them. Had he not planned to have Hein¬ 
rich take over the butcher business there in the village ? 
What could possibly be better than that for any young 
man? Of course, there was John Jacob, the younger son; 
perhaps it would be as well, after all, to have him carry 
on the business. There had always been some one of the 
family butchering in Walddorf; there always would be, 
of course. 

Whenever the father of John Jacob had these 
thoughts, as the letters of Heinrich were read, he should 
have glanced up at the face of this youngest son of his. 
Had he done so he might have begun to have doubts about 
the future of the butcher business in Walddorf. For the 
bright blue eyes of John Jacob twinkled with excitement 
over every word and phrase in Heinrich’s letters. Later 
he would borrow the letters, and, in some quiet corner, 
he would read them over and over. It should have been 
clear, too, that John Jacob was not in the least interested 
in learning how to carve the carcass of a pig or an ox 
into appetizing cuts of meat. 

And now here was this new letter, the one we started 
with at the beginning of this story. John Jacob listened 
while it was being read, and as he did so the last shade 
of doubt and uncertainty left him. For in this letter Hein¬ 
rich said: 

“John Jacob, you come over, too. You will like it. You 
can make money, too.” 

That settled it; John Jacob would go to America. 
Nothing should stop him; he would go. 

That eager boy was John Jacob Astor, who was to 
have so much to do with the early nineteenth-century 


144 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

history of his adopted city, New York, who was to give a 
new meaning to the term "fur trader/’ and who was to 
write the word F-U-R in letters of gold spread across a 
continent from New York to Puget Sound, on the 
Pacific. 

But the boy John Jacob was still in Walddorf, and it 
was to be many anxious months before he could set out on 
his journey. There was the matter of getting his father’s 
consent—not an easy task. Then there was the passage 
across the Atlantic; how was it to be paid for? Indeed, 
this latter obstacle couldn’t be removed, exactly, and John 
Jacob’s journey to the new world was made in two 
stages: th,e first took him to London where a job awaited 
him. To many a boy this going to London would have 
been a sufficient adventure. But when a boy like John 
Jacob has a goal he has set for himself, far up ahead, he 
does not let the little goals along the way blind him to the 
far-off one. The German boy went at his new work in 
London with great earnestness. But in his mind that job 
was to yield him two things: a knowledge of English 
and money for his passage to America. With these 
two things accomplished, the alert, blue-eyed, broad- 
shouldered young man took the first ship that would land 
him in New York. 

In time the lumbering old sailing ship worked her way 
up through the Narrows to the docks of the bustling little 
city. On her deck, all eyes, stood John Jacob, gazing at 
this America where fortune beckoned, and there on the 
dock was big, keen-looking brother Heinrich, the prosper¬ 
ous butcher, who slapped John Jacob on the back and 
hugged him, crying over and over, “Velcome, velcome, 
mein leedle broder!” 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 


145 


It was queer the way fur got itself tangled, always, 
in the plans of John Jacob Astor. When he left Germany 
it is not to be supposed that he knew anything about fur 
whatsoever. It is very doubtful whether he could have 
told a beaver skin from the hide of a grizzly bear. But 
on the way across the ocean he fell in with a young fur 
merchant who had bought and sold peltries in New York. 
Young John Jacob, being curious about everything, be¬ 
gan to ask questions. What were the prices for beaver 
pelts ? Did one pay cash for them or did one barter for 
them? What sorts of articles made a good stock of 
merchandise for the fur trade? Those red men of the 
woods, were they dangerous? What other animals, be¬ 
sides the beavers, had fur on their backs of value in the 
trade? The fur markets, where were they? These and a 
hundred other questions did John Jacob shower on his 
new friend. When the German immigrant boy left the 
ship, he knew much about the trade in peltries, and a dim 
plan was already forming in his mind. 

Now Heinrich had supposed, all along, that John Jacob 
would want a job in the butcher shop. That was where 
Astors belonged, no matter on which side of the ocean 
they happened to be. Thus reasoned Heinrich, and there 
was a place waiting for “leedle broder.” Imagine his sur¬ 
prise, then, when the position was declined and John 
Jacob sought elsewhere for a job. 

Again some fairy waved a beaver skin for a wand over 
the yellow head of John Jacob. The job he found was in 
the small shop of Quaker Brown, dealer in furs. The dim 
dream in the head of the boy from Walddorf became a 
shade more definite. In the shop of Quaker Brown John 
Jacob was kept busy all day sorting out the peltries, 


146 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

learning to grade them, taking them out into the light 
to shake and beat them in order to drive out the moths. 
Camphor was too dear in those days to be used in fighting 
moths. As for moth balls, nothing like them was on hand 
to replace John Jacob's busy hands. Two dollars a week 
was the pay in the good Quaker's shop. But never were 
his peltries sorted so carefully, never was the war against 
moths waged so successfully, as by this two-dollar-a- 
week clerk. 

While the immigrant boy worked he studied. He 
studied fur and the fur business. He noticed that some 
pelts came to the shop flat, like a mat, while others came 
“cased," that is, the trapper had pulled them off over the 
fur bearer's head, so that the fur was on the inside, out 
of sight. John Jacob learned to run his hand up across the 
flat fur surfaces, estimating as he did so the quality of 
the fur. He learned to push his hand down inside the 
cased pelts and tell with his fingers how prime the fur 
was. Eyes and fingers together told him whether the trap¬ 
per had done a good job of skinning and stretching. Ears 
and eyes were alert, whenever a man came in with furs 
to sell, to catch each turn in the “dicker" between the 
seller and Quaker Brown. 

“Mr. Brown, why more for dis dan for dis?" John 
Jacob would quiz his employer when they were alone 
again. “Dis" and “dis" might be two beaver skins that 
looked exactly alike to John Jacob. Then the good Quaker 
would show his inquisitive helper that the higher-priced 
pelt was perhaps a shade darker in color than the other. 
The clerk stored away in his clear brain every scrap of 
information he gained in these ways. 

There was a hatter on the street John Jacob traveled 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 


147 


to and from his work. He dropped in one day and found 
the hatter, one assistant, and two apprentices making 
beaver hats. Here was something to learn. He stayed as 
long as he could that day, and managed to drop in there 
at other times. He watched so intently, and asked so 
many questions, that in time he almost felt he could make 
a beaver hat himself. 

In the making of a beaver hat the beaver fur was first 
clipped from the skin. It was then cleaned in warm wa¬ 
ter, and the coarser hairs were picked out. Then masses 
of the soft fur, still damp, were pressed between great 
sheets of leather. This process was repeated until the fur 
was in a thick-matted wad of felt. 

At this point the expert hatters began their work. They 
placed a quantity of the felt on a heated table top and 
there kneaded it and rolled it, working in more hot water 
until the whole mass was soft and pliable. When the 
beaver felt had been worked out into a sheet of the right 
thickness, it was cut into triangles, and two of these tri¬ 
angles were fastened together at the two edges. There 
you had a tall, rough-looking, cone-shaped hat. 

The cone-shaped hats were next pressed down over 
wooden blocks and there molded and shaped until the 
crown and brim suited the style of the time. Another step 
often taken was to dye the hat—blue, perhaps, with the 
indigo from South Carolina, quite likely, in use in the 
process. After that the hat was hung up to dry. 

We all remember the high, almost-pointed beaver hats 
of the Puritans. Later on, the crowns became lower. The 
hats John Jacob saw made had wide brims caught up and 
fastened to the crown at three points. We are familiar 
with that hat. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, 


148 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Thomas Jefferson—all the great men of that period with 
whose pictures we are so well acquainted—wore hats like 
that. 

Our curious clerk learned that only a small part of the 
beaver pelts obtained in this country remained here to 
be made into American hats. The greater number, by far, 
crossed the sea and found their way into hundreds of hat¬ 
making shops scattered about Europe. He learned, also, 
that nearly all of the richer peltries, those of the silver 
foxes, the martens, and the otters, went directly to Euro¬ 
pean fur markets. There was only now and then an 
American who felt he could afford to wear anything as 
valuable as a fur garment, unless it was a bearskin coat 
or, more likely, a coonskin cap. 

John Jacob Astor learned all these things, and many 
more, about the fur business. Quaker Brown noted the 
boy’s interest. He remembered, too, how hard his clerk 
worked to keep the stocks of furs clean and free from 
vermin. One day, just before closing time, he called John 
Jacob over to his high desk in the corner. 

“John,” he said, “how would you like to try your hand 
at buying fur ? An honest lad and a quick one you have 
proved to be. But in buying you must be a shrewd one, 
also. If you can buy, this dull work inside here will be 
turned over to a new boy; your apprenticeship will be 
over.” 

John Jacob did not answer in words, but the look he 
threw in his employer’s direction showed how he felt 
about the new adventure opening before him. 

All the next day, whenever there was a lull in the work, 
the old Quaker examined his new fur buyer on the fine 
points of fur buying. 


149 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 

“Look at this beaver pelt. Is it prime or summer- 
caught? Was it properly stretched? Are there any signs 
of moths? And this mink skin. It is cased, with the fur 
on the inside where you can not see it. How are you go¬ 
ing to tell whether it is a good piece of fur? If prime, 
what price will you allow ?” So ran John Jacob’s exami¬ 
nation. He must have passed it, for soon after, he was 
taking short trips into the Catskill Mountains to buy fur. 
He came back with good packs bought at prices that 
showed Quaker Brown the way to handsome profits. 
Truly, this young man was a valuable helper, and the fur 
merchant had it in his mind to promote him, slowly, of 
course, to a still higher place in the business. 

Now it was Quaker Brown’s turn to get the same sort 
of surprise that brother Heinrich had been treated to 
earlier: John Jacob suddenly resigned, shook his head 
firmly at all Quaker Brown’s promises as to the future, 
and then proceeded to open a fur establishment of his 
own. 

A very large plan was shaping under the yellow thatch 
of John Jacob. He began to catch the outlines of an em¬ 
pire, an empire of fur. It was to have one single ruler, 
John Jacob Astor. To bring this dream down to solid 
ground there must be no dallying with side issues; no 
wasting of time with the Heinrichs and the Quaker 
Browns of this world. There must be a steady drive always 
toward the goal, with one brain directing all. Thus did 
John Jacob, the immigrant boy, plan the building of his 
empire, and thus did he set out on the road to the throne 
he meant to occupy. 

It might almost seem that a young man with such 
grand plans in his head would have no time even to think 


150 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

about getting married. But our young German-American 
not only took time to find a wife, but he found one who 
could think great plans with her John Jacob, and then 
take the necessary steps and do the necessary work to 
make those plans work. John Jacob’s Sarah was his 
dreaming, hustling partner from the first. 

What an America that was—the young America of 
young John Jacob’s day! The British were gone, the new 
nation, the United States, could make of itself what it 
would. Everywhere eager citizens of the new republic 
began taking stock of their chances to build their own 
fortunes on better and wider foundations. Some turned 
their eyes toward the west, stretching away to the Missis¬ 
sippi. Many turned back to their merchant ships and their 
fishing smacks. Others, again, began to think in terms of 
New England waterfalls and to figure how many spin¬ 
dles those plunging waters, once harnessed, would turn. 
As for John Jacob Astor, he saw no need to calculate the 
future in any terms save those of fur. He could feel the 
steady, strong demand for choice peltries in the markets 
of the world. For many years to come, your gentleman 
was going to demand his beaver hat. For costly robes and 
for the trappings of royalty the gleaming coats of 
ermine, of fox, and of otter still ruled. John Jacob studied 
his maps, and his thoughts turned to the north, to the 
Great Lakes country where the French had opened the 
fur trade only to lose it, at last, to the British. Now the 
British were gone, so said the Treaty of 1783, from all 
the lands south of the lakes. Why should not some enter¬ 
prising American, John Jacob Astor, for example, fall 
heir to what the British had left behind? That land was 
still a wilderness. Wilderness meant fur-bearing animals. 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 


151 


The Indians were still there to barter their furs for 
trinkets. The blue eyes of John Jacob blinked fast with 
excitement, and the empire of his dreams came still 
farther out of the shadows. 

But there was still a gap between the dream and things 
as they actually were in the affairs of John Jacob and 
Sarah there in New York. Their fur shop was merely the 
front room of their home. When John Jacob was away— 
and that was much of the time—Sarah tended the shop 
and the house and the babies. Let’s look on, now, and 
watch the laying of the foundations of the fur empire 
that was to be. We must travel hard and fast if we even 
keep in sight of John Jacob in the years ahead. 

Now we see the young fur merchant stepping off the 
slow little packet that has brought him up the river to 
Albany from New York. To his broad shoulders he is 
hoisting a pack that weighs more than sixty pounds. In 
his hand he carries a gun. A haversack holds a snack of 
food and a shiny-looking tube which is too long to go 
entirely out of sight into the shapeless canvas bag. What 
can that be for? John Jacob lights his pipe and trudges 
off along the road to the west. 

After a little time the road is only a trail, the bushes 
whipping together again after the trader has pushed on. 
That night the trader stays with the last settler on that 
trail. John Jacob sits by the fire and reports the latest 
news from New York: the strange ships that have lately 
come to anchor there; the new buildings that are going 
up; the rumor that George Washington and the other 
great men are declaring that the new government of 
America must be made stronger if the United States is 
ever to amount to anything. Then the gossip slips around 


152 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

to fur, and John Jacob learns which settlers are likely to 
have some peltries for sale. Before the evening is over, 
and John Jacob curls up for the night in a straw bed in 
a corner of a lean-to, his pack is lightened by the removal 
of perhaps a few packages of needles and a spool or so 
of thread; and there is the beginning of a new pack con¬ 
taining one or two beaver or weasel skins. 

Next morning the long strides of John Jacob carry 
him farther and farther into the wild country. Every two 
hours he stops, unshoulders his pack, and rests and 
smokes for ten minutes. Then it’s up and away again. 
Rougher and rougher grows the trail. Mosquitoes swarm 
about the trader. Sweaty and begrimed, he plods along. 
At last there is a clearing up ahead and we can see—not 
the log farm buildings of some settler, but a cluster of 
wigwams. A summer village of the Mohawks! It is al¬ 
ready late in the afternoon. Surely the trader is not going 
to pass the night here? But there he goes, straight up to 
the largest wigwam. If we could creep up close we should 
see him, presently, seated with the Mohawk family at 
supper. 

The owner of this particular wigwam is a wrinkled old 
warrior, his hair white with the snows of many winters. 
Like all of his kind among the Mohawks, the Senecas, 
the Cayugas, and the other tribes of the old Iroquoian 
Confederacy, he does not care much for these Americans. 
He well remembers how, only a few years back, those 
palefaces of the English nation living to the south and 
east on the great water, those “big knives,” had fought 
with the other men of that same English tribe who came 
from the rising sun, so he had heard, in great canoes. He 
and his people could never understand what that war was 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 


153 


about. But then, the “big knives’’ were always cutting 
down the trees and ruining the game country, while those 
others from far off did not molest the woods, and gave 
an Indian a good gun for his furs, and passed around fine 
presents—much finer than those which reached the wig¬ 
wams from the agents of those “big knives.” So he and 
most of the other warriors had helped make war against 
the “big knives.” 

The old Mohawk remembers, too, how a great war 
party of “big knives” had come into the country and had 
burned down whole villages and had destroyed great 
fields of growing corn, and had driven away his people. 
As he calls to mind all these things he looks across the 
fire at John Jacob, sitting there smiling and eating, and 
the heart of the old warrior is cold toward this trader 
from the great villages by the big water. Perhaps he even 
thinks what a fine yellow scalp he may have before long 
now. What a chance to wipe out old scores! 

But somehow, John Jacob’s scalp stayed firmly on his 
head. To begin with, he did not seem exactly to belong 
to that race of “big knives.” “Ja, mein friendt” didn’t 
sound quite like the talk of those hated palefaces to the 
south. And then his blue eyes smiled at you in such a 
friendly way. More important still, perhaps, was that 
shiny-looking tube which, you remember, stuck out of his 
haversack. It came into full view now, gleaming in the 
light of the fire. The smiling trader put it to his lips and 
coaxed strange, soft, soothing sounds from it. The surly 
old Mohawk could not be an enemy of John Jacob. In¬ 
stead, he fed him and smoked with him and allowed him 
to curl up in a corner of the wigwam for a night’s rest. 
In the morning he bartered whatever peltries he hap- 


154 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

pened to have for the wonderful things that came out of 
the big pack. Then John Jacob was off again along the 
trail to the next village, carrying with him his diminish¬ 
ing pack of wonders and his growing pack of furs, and 
his friendly smile and his flute. 

Week after week for many a season did John Jacob 
weave in and out along the frontier’s farthest rim, trad¬ 
ing with red man and white alike, always friendly, always 
just, always quick to let the wily bargainer know that he 
knew the prime beaver pelt from the one that was sum¬ 
mer-caught. Now and again the hustling trader might 
have been seen even as far north as the streets of Mon¬ 
treal, his purpose now to make the acquaintance of the 
English traders there and to find ways of shipping some 
of his furs from that port direct to the markets across the 
sea. But soon or late he bent his footsteps toward New 
York, because, down there, managing a house and a 
growing fur business, was Sarah, waiting for him. Not 
a word had she had from him nor he from her, during 
all the months of his wandering. 

By and by the people of New York began to nudge 
each other when John Jacob passed by: “See that stocky 
man over there, the one with the yellow hair and that 
quick, swinging step? Well, sir, that’s Astor. John Jacob 
Astor. They say he’s the biggest fur dealer in town. Buys 
and sells more fur than all the others put together.” 

At the time when John Jacob, the immigrant boy, was 
merging into John Jacob Astor, the rising fur merchant, 
there were two great fur companies operating in Canada. 
Besides the Hudson’s Bay Company, the older of the 
two, there was the North-west Company with its posts 
scattered along the Great Lakes and westward. Both 



PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 155 

companies employed hundreds of men; there were the 
managers and chief agents, or factors—most of them 
bold and courageous Scotchmen; there were the explor¬ 
ers, spying out new fur territory; the clerks; the 
French Canadian, half-breed, and Indian canoemen, or 


A TRADING POST OF THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY AS IT APPEARS NOW 

voyageurs. Great boatloads of trade goods moved up the 
lakes and along the portages to the scattered posts of 
the North-west Company; bales and bales of precious 
furs found their way back downstream to Montreal and 
out to the markets of the world. In the hands of these cool 
Britishers the fur harvest was a well-organized business 
over a region half as big as Europe. 

John Jacob Astor was shrewd enough to realize that 






156 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

he could learn much from the head men of this great 
Canadian company. Somehow or other he coaxed its 
managers to let him accompany one of their “fur 
brigades” out to the far western edge of their forest king¬ 
dom, a privilege gained by few. So away went Astor into 
the west, his outfit and himself stored snugly in one end 
of one of the company’s great canoes. The route followed 
was a familiar one to Indians and to Frenchmen since 
the days of Jean Nicolet: up the Ottawa, across to Lake 
Nipissing, out into Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay, 
up against the current of the Sault Ste. Marie and out 
upon the mighty Lake Superior. The British now knew 
that route well, but few indeed were the Americans who 
had passed that way. This particular fleet of North-west 
canoes skirted along the northern shore of the big lake, 
heading toward the distant mouth of Pigeon River. 

What a voyage that was for John Jacob Astor! Such 
a wild, swaggering lot was that crew of boatmen, pictur¬ 
esque with their moccasined feet, gay, tasseled caps, and 
bright sashes about their waists. They handled the well¬ 
laden canoes with uncanny skill. All day they bent to 
their paddles. But as they dipped and swung, the forested 
shores caught and threw back the echoes of their wild 
boating songs. What huge platters of coarse food they 
gulped down at night around the campfires! Feet to the 
blaze and curled in their blankets, what tales they told of 
high adventure in this land of forest and lake and stream 
which was the only home they knew! We may be sure 
that even the stolid and businesslike John Jacob Astor 
had many a thrill out of that trip into the shaggy west. 
We may be equally sure that he watched everything with 
keen eyes. He was learning, learning every little trick 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 


157 


and turn of the fur trade. He learned what sorts of goods 
were best for the trade with each Indian tribe, what part 
of the wild land was best for each kind of glossy pelt, and 
how to get on with these wild voyageurs. 

Grand Portage! That was where the fur brigade ended 
its long voyage, over near the western end of Lake Su¬ 
perior and not far from the mouth of the Pigeon River. 
From here the goods were portaged across country to the 
North-west Company’s Fort Charlotte, at the eastern 
end of grand canoeing waters that reached back and back 
into thousands of square miles of wonderful fur country. 
At Fort Charlotte, Astor met the great men of the com¬ 
pany and saw just how they ruled the wilderness. He 
heard, wonderingly, of more lakes and rivers, all teem¬ 
ing with beaver, still farther off toward the setting sun ; 
of a land where prairie grasses grew, league upon league, 
with only fringes of woodland along the streams; a land 
where the red men rode to war and to the chase on their 
tough, wiry horses. Vague stories he heard, too, of “the 
Shining Mountains” almost uncountable miles away to 
the west—mountains which Frenchmen had actually 
seen, and whose peaks, gleaming with eternal snow, 
seemed to pierce the sky itself. 

“What a country!” thought John Jacob Astor. “What 
a land of opportunity for one who will work, and learn 
as he works.” 

He went back to Sarah with the plan of what he 
wanted to do very clear and definite in his head. He saw 
in his mind’s eye a chain of fur-trading posts stretching 
away westward from Albany to the farthest western 
limit of the Great Lakes, all on American soil, reaping 
the fur harvest from tens of thousands of square miles 


158 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


of wilderness, and passing the gathered crop on into the 
hands of John Jacob Astor. 

Out of Astor’s waking dream came, a few years later, 
the American Fur Company, which spread like a great 
net over the Great Lakes country and over the upper 
waters of the Mississippi. The story of this German im¬ 
migrant boy now becomes so many-sided that it really 
breaks up into several stories. Later on in this book there 
will be accounts of the fur traders of the far Oregon 
country. When we come to these we shall again be fol¬ 
lowing the wide-ranging schemes of John Jacob Astor. 

The blue-eyed boy from Walddorf, Germany, will al¬ 
ways be remembered as the greatest of America’s fur 
merchants. But even if we leave fur out of it, his story 
is still worth while. It is a story of how a vague little 
dream grew to be a big, definite one; of how a boy’s am¬ 
bition grew to match his biggest dream; of how he 
plodded through each day’s work toward some minor 
goal that brought him closer to the larger one farther 
up the road. 


Questions on the Story 

1. Why was John Jacob Astor, the German boy, eager to come 
to America? 

2. How and where did he gain a knowledge of the fur business? 

3. How were beaver hats made? 

4. Describe John Jacob’s duties as a fur merchant’s clerk. 

5. How did he begin dealing in peltries on his own account? 

6. What plans for the future were taking shape in his brain? 

Things to Think About 

1. Can you think of reasons why New York City was an excel¬ 
lent place for Astor to make his home ? 


PRINCE OF FUR MERCHANTS 159 

2. Do you believe that John Jacob Astor was likely to be suc¬ 
cessful in any enterprise he took up? 

Things to Do 

1. On a large map, point out these places: New York, Albany, 
Sault Ste. Marie, Pigeon River, Grand Marais, Fort Charlotte 
(you probably cannot find the fort on any map; but you can show 
about where it was). 

2. Find in a textbook in history the account of General Sulli¬ 
van’s expedition against the Indians in the Revolutionary War. 
Compare it with what is told in this story about the same event. 




i 





THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


F\OWN had come the French flag, and up had gone 
the flag of England over the Land of Many Waters. 
Then our own Stars and Stripes waved over the lands 
south of the big lakes, and on down along the Father of 
Waters. To the red forest dwellers it must all have been 
very puzzling; but only the wisest of them saw in all these 
changes anything to menace the happiness of the Indian 
people. The forests were still there. The deer and the fish 
were there for food. The cornfields were still tended by 
the squaws. The beaver, the mink, the marten, and the 
otter still prowled about and built their homes and reared 
their young. Their pelts were still deep and glossy and 
could be traded for guns and beads and kettles, just as in 
the days of old. It was a good land, nestling there be¬ 
neath the lakes. It was a good life they led—the Chip- 
pewas, the Winnebagoes, the Pottawottamies, and the 
Ottawas. It might well go on forever. 

The buyers of fur were still there. They built their 
posts and spread their wares for all to see. On the forest 
trails men, white and red, still sweated under heavy packs 
160 









THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 161 

of beaver skins. On the watery passageways they still 
paddled their endless miles and schemed and plotted and 
quarreled for a share in the pelt harvest. Each year saw 
great cargoes of fur from the Land of Many Waters 
spreading out to the markets of the world. 

But there was one change the red men must have no¬ 
ticed. In the older days most of the furs were handled 
by the agents of the great fur companies. Even so was 
it to this day in Canada, where the Hudson’s Bay Com¬ 
pany and the North-west Company still held sway. But 
here in the lands where the new flags with their stars and 
their stripes had been run up over the forts, it seemed 
that any man who cared to could engage in the fur trade. 
Thus on the shores of the big lakes, on the portages be¬ 
tween the streams, almost anywhere you turned you 
could find a trader who would barter with you for your 
winter’s catch. It was exciting to the red trapper, for the 
prices offered were nowhere the same. 

But the posts of a great trading company were there, 
too, and the number of these seemed to be growing. Often 
the company post was built almost under the nose of an 
independent trader. When this happened, the Indian was 
in his glory. Such feasts as he was given, such prices as 
he was allowed for his furs, when the foolish white men 
in the rival posts fought to win the Indian’s peltries! 
Truly, such prosperous times the red men had never be¬ 
fore seen. 

John Farnsworth was one of these small, independent 
traders, battling to hold his own against the grasping 
fur company. Let us visit his post and get him to tell his 
story. 

Our canoe pokes its nose around the bend of a brawling 


162 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

river, and there on the north bank we see two or three 
log buildings in a little clearing in the woods. It is the 
place we are looking for. As we swing our canoe inshore 
we see corn, potatoes, and other vegetables growing in 
the clearing. Two canoes, much like ours, are drawn up 
at a log wharf. As we paddle in to the landing a big, smil¬ 
ing man comes down to meet us. 

“Hello, strangers/’ is the greeting he calls to us. His 
clothes are about what you would expect an Indian to be 
wearing. You might almost take him for an Indian, were 
it not for his brown beard and his blue eyes. In his voice 
there is a cheery “twang” that tells you here is a “New 
England Yankee.” Many of them were in the fur trade 
at that time. 

“Come ashore, and welcome,” cries the big man as he 
steadies our canoe. “I haven’t seen any white folks since 
I was in Mackinac last summer. My woman’ll have sup¬ 
per ready in no time. It won’t be anything fine, but there’ll 
be plenty of it. Come on up to the cabin. I was surprised, 
I can tell you, when I looked up and saw your canoe work¬ 
ing up against the current. Visitors from that direction 
are mighty scarce. My name’s Farnsworth, John Farns¬ 
worth.” 

So here we are, an hour later, sitting on logs or benches 
before the trader’s door, watching the river at our feet 
and listening lazily to the bark of squirrels and to the 
harsh voice of Mr. Bluejay as he flits about. What a meal 
of venison, wild rice, dark bread, and sauce made from 
wild blackberries the trader’s pretty little Indian wife, 
Spotted Fawn, has set before us! No wonder we feel lazy 
and content. But we are curious, too, and pretty soon we 
begin popping questions at our tall, good-natured host 
with his twinkling eyes and his slow drawl: 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


163 


“How long have you lived here, Mr. Farnsworth? 
Where are the Indians you trade with? We haven’t seen 
one. Do you ever have trouble with them ? Where do you 
get all those blankets and kettles and knives, and all the 
other things we saw in the big front room of your log 
house?” 

These and a dozen more questions we ask. John Farns¬ 
worth smiles as he answers the first ones. Then he looks 
thoughtful as he carefully loads and lights his pipe, 
settles back comfortably against the trunk of a big maple, 
and becomes reminiscent. 

“Well, you folks appear mighty interested in my place 
here, and the way I carry on my business. So I’ll sort of 
begin at the beginning and tell you all about it. I drifted 
out into Ohio ten years ago from my boyhood home in 
Maine, where I was born. I was used to the woods, so 
got to trapping around there in Ohio. I took my furs one 
spring—mine and a nice lot I had bought from the few 
neighbors I had—and toted them to a post up on Lake 
Erie. I sold them at a good profit. I got acquainted with 
the trader and he gave me a job as an assistant. I stayed 
there two years and learned a lot about fur and about 
Indians. Then I went to work for a small trading com¬ 
pany and was stationed up here at Mackinac. This was a 
good experience for me, too. I saved my money, for by 
this time I had the idea in my head that I wanted to be 
a trader on my own hook. When I was ready I bought a 
stock of trade goods, got some Indians to paddle my 
canoes, and we scouted around till we found this place. 
We built this main cabin, and then I hired the Indians to 
go up into the back-country along the river, and along 
some of the old trails, to tell the Indians they found about 
me and my new post and to let them know that I was 


164 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

ready to buy their furs when they began trapping that 
fall 

“This is a pretty wild country around here. You can 
go along the shore of the big lake all the way to Fort 
Dearborn, and you won’t see a single white man’s house. 
You just proved that for yourselves. Woods everywhere. 
Down that way are the Pottawottami Indians. You can 
go north still farther before you see any sign of white 
folks. And to the west—well, I guess you could travel 
your legs off before you found any palefaces. Big trees 
everywhere, mostly hardwoods hereabouts, and then the 
white pines, so I’m told, towards the north and west. 
Winnebago redskins off west of here, Menominees 
toward the north, and Chippewas off beyond them. The 
red folks nearest me have villages where they live most 
of the time, and there are some good-sized cornfields. At 
that they do a lot of wandering around at times when 
they have fur to sell or maple sugar to make or berries to 
pick. The Chippewas, I hear, hunt and fish most of the 
time. 

“When late fall came at the end of my first summer 
here, some Winnebagoes came down the river one day 
in their canoes, and I traded them out of a nice lot of 
fur. I treated.them well and they went away, promising 
to come again with more furs. Then others came, and 
some of the old ones came back from time to time. I was 
having a good trade for my first season. I was as hearty 
as a bear. I managed to squeeze in some short hunting 
trips, and there was great fishing in the river. I was 
having a fine time of it and was happy. Only a few In¬ 
dians came during the deep snows, but I managed to keep 
busy cutting up a good big pile of wood. The Indians 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 165 

that did come during the dead of winter were pretty hard 
to get rid of. They wanted to stay and have me feed them 
and let them sleep in my warm little cabin. Then towards 
spring bands of Indian trappers and their families began 
coming in from all directions with their winter’s catch. 
What furs they had! They camped all around here in the 
woods and fished and traded with me. I don’t know of 
anybody—unless it’s a Yankee—that likes to dicker and 
swap better than an Indian does. I believe it was the most 
fun those bucks had in the whole year, and they dragged 
it out as long as they could. Time doesn’t mean a thing 
to a red man; he has more of that than anything else. So 
he bargains with you, one pelt at a time. You and he 
haggle over how big a piece of red calico he is to get for 
this particular otter skin. When you finish with that, out, 
maybe, comes a beaver hide. The dicker starts all over 
again, this time to settle how many beads he is to get for 
it. Then you start in on something else. You always want 
to pretend that the redskin has got the better of you in 
the swap. That tickles him more than anything. It takes 
patience, I can tell you, to be a fur trader. 

“After a while I had all the pelts the Indians had 
brought in, and most of my kettles and cheap guns and 
hatchets and beads and calico were scattered around in 
the wigwams. Then most of the Indians, after a feast and 
a lot of pow-wowing, went off to fish, or back to their 
villages to lie around and smoke and loaf. That is, the 
Indian men had mapped out that kind of summer for 
themselves. Your red man, when he has a mind to, can 
hustle and work and suffer and stand up under hard¬ 
ships with the best of them. But when it comes time to 
rest—well, he just about holds a world record as a com- 


166 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

plete, twenty-four-hour-a-day loafer. But the squaws, 
they work all the time. They take down the wigwams 
when there’s traveling to do and set them up again. They 
get all the wood for the campfires, skin the game brought 
in, make shirts and moccasins, take care of the cornfields, 
and do the cooking. At thirty-five some of them look to be 
sixty. 

“I had been looking over the young Indian men who 
were around my place that spring to decide which ones 
would make good reliable canoemen. I hired a few of 
these to stay with me. We went to work and carefully 
sorted and baled up the furs. Finally these were stored 
carefully in the canoes. We put in a camping outfit, and 
plenty of cornmeal and smoked fish and jerked venison, 
and pushed off down the river. We were headed for 
Mackinac to sell the fur. That was a hard trip, and when 
we arrived I had more work matching wits against the 
merchants there, and keeping an eye on my Indians. Back 
we came as soon as I had selected my fresh stock of 
goods. My first season had given me a pretty good profit, 
and I was satisfied. After that I took it easy until it was 
time for the late fall trading to open up. 

“Maybe you wonder how I dared leave my cabin for 
so long. This was before I was married, you understand. 
I guess what you read makes you think that Indians are 
a tricky, thieving lot, always on the war path looking 
for a chance to scalp somebody, and to burn and plunder. 
Living right here among them, I have learned that the 
Indian is a pretty good fellow if you treat him fairly. 
When he makes up his mind that you don’t intend to 
cheat him, and that you mean just what you say, he will 
be your friend. After that it takes a good deal to turu 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


167 


him against you. You can trust him, too. When you and 
he are on good terms, his word to you is as good as any 
white man's—maybe better. If he says he will do a certain 
thing, or be at some place at a certain time, depend on it, 
he’ll be there. He idles away his time too much, according 
to the way we white people look at it; and I guess he 
would hang around and let some one else support him 
the rest of his life if he could work it that way. He likes 
the white man’s firewater too well. Strong drink makes 
him a very bad man to have around. Then, too, his ideas 
of revenge are queer, and he may want to harm you be¬ 
cause some other white man has wronged him. Since the 
palefaces came into his country and started taking it 
away from him, the red man has had quite a lot to put 
up with; in spite of all this, he hasn’t dug up the hatchet 
and taken to the war path against his enemies very often. 
No, the way the books picture the Indian as a red 
scoundrel is all wrong. At any rate, I’ve tried to have you 
see the Indians just as I see them after all these years I’ve 
spent among them.” 

John Farnsworth’s pipe glows in the gathering dark¬ 
ness as he goes on with his story. 

“Well, my life went along here about as I have told you 
for the next two years. Then when I went out with my 
fur that third summer I heard some news that bothered 
me. The other traders I met at Mackinac told me that 
there was a big fur company working up into the lake 
country. This company was doing its best, so they said, 
to squeeze out the little traders like myself. All this had 
me worried. But when I got back here everything looked 
snug and safe. What could happen to spoil my trade and 
keep me from going on living just the kind of a life I 


168 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

liked? Why worry? Maybe it was all just talk, I thought. 

'‘But all at once the blow fell. I was puttering around 
outside here one day when up the river came three big 
canoes. They beached over across there, and some white 
men and half-breeds got out and hustled around making 
camp. It was pretty plain to me that some of them had 
been up around here before, planning what was to be 
done. The next morning they started cutting down trees, 
and in a few days had two good log houses built. You 
can see what is left of one of them through that clump of 
bushes just beyond that big oak, or you could have before 
it got so dark. The next week two more big canoes came 
plowing up the river. Out of these came bundles and 
boxes and packages and kegs. It didn’t take me two 
guesses to figure out what was in them: goods for the 
Indian trade, of course. These were soon carried into the 
log houses. Somebody else was going into the fur trade— 
that big company, I hadn’t a doubt of it. 

“Well, what could I do about it? I didn’t own the 
land. It would do no good to order them off. So I stayed 
on my side of the river, and the crowd over across there 
left me alone. In fact, they didn’t act as if they knew I 
existed. After a few days most of the canoes and men 
went away. One man stayed behind: the agent of the 
new post. He and I got acquainted, and he wasn’t a bad 
man to know. But he told me right out that it was his 
business to get the fur trade away from me. He had or¬ 
ders to do that. 

“Of course, the Indians who drifted down the river 
were excited over the new post and went over there to 
say ‘bo-zhou’ (good day) to the stranger. How the agent 
grinned, and hobnobbed with the red men, and passed out 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


169 


the free smoking tobacco! Some of the visitors got more 
than just tobacco, and these hurried away in their canoes 
as fast as they could paddle. ‘Messengers/ said I to 
myself. Sure enough, in a week’s time there was a bunch 
of wigwams scattered around over there, and the Indians 
fairly swarmed around the new post. My side of the river 
looked as if some kind of a plague had struck it. 

“The powwow across the river wound up with a big 
feast for the bucks. When the Indians were well filled 
and the pipes were going good, the trader climbed up on 
an empty box and made a speech. I couldn’t hear his 
words, but the red men seemed to like it. In the morning 
when the wigwams came down, and the squaws had 
rolled up the mats and stored them in the canoes, and 
everything was ready for the trip back up the river, the 
Indians were crowding around the company man over 
there, telling him about the wonderful pelts they were 
going to bring him. The Indian talks with his hands 
pretty much, and I could read what the gestures meant, 
all right. 

“Friends, I was pretty well scared about my fur 
business, I can tell you. I had quite a spell of thinking 
the next few days. At last I decided that I would give 
the redskins a feast, too, even though they’d had one at 
my expense only a few weeks before. I got hold of some 
of them and sent them off to invite all the others. I wasn’t 
going to be whipped without a fight. ‘Here I am and here 
I’ll stay till I’ve traded the shirt off my back for a weasel 
skin!’ said I to nobody in particular. Pretty soon every 
wigwam within fifty miles of here knew that I was giv¬ 
ing a grand party, and there was to be heap-much eating 
and plenty speech-making. Now an Indian likes to eat as 


170 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

well as anybody; but you never saw anybody, white, 
black, or red, who likes to sit solemnly in a council, or 
hear himself making speeches, as well as an Indian does. 
It doesn’t matter very much what it’s all about. Once I 
was at one of their councils where they orated the better 
part of two days, and what do you suppose it was all 
about? Well, young Gray Wolf had had a dream, and 
the redskins were arguing whether the dream meant they 
should go north or south for the fall hunt. 

“Back they all came, anyway, to my party. Two grand 
powwows in a row! The rascals were having a great time, 
I can tell you. I cooked up a lot of salt pork for them, 
along with other things. An Indian will almost give his 
two eyes for a piece of salt pork. We smoked together 
and all the chiefs made speeches. Then I got up on that 
- stump and I let them have it. If I do say it, I cal’late it 
was about as good a speech as Patrick Henry made that 
time. The red men like flowery speeches. I told them they 
were the favored children of the great Manitou and that 
their warriors were the bravest on earth. I pointed to the 
river and boasted that it would cease to flow before an 
enemy powerful enough to drive them from their hunting 
grounds would show up. 

“Then I wound up something like this: ‘Pottawottami! 
Winnebagoes! Open your ears and your hearts, my 
brothers, and heed what I say. More moons than can be 
counted have come and gone since I came among you, 
and built my wigwam, and opened my packs of trade 
goods. We have lived at peace. Tell me this, brothers: 
When have I, your kinsman, ever counted your beaver 
skins and made them too few? Or sold you a knife with 
a blade that would not cut, or a gun that would not shoot ? 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


171 


When has your brother ever closed his ears when one of 
your tired hunters asked to sleep in his wigwam ? When 
has he sent any of your squaws up the trail hungry? You 
know the answers, my brothers. Always has the heart of 
your white brother been good toward his red brothers, 
and never has he spoken to them with the forked tongue.' 

“ ‘How! How !' I could hear that grunt of approval 
coming from the circle of Indians as I went on with my 
speech. Then at the end there was a regular chorus of 
‘How’s.' That speech seemed to please my guests might¬ 
ily. Some of the old fellows seemed about ready to break 
down and weep. They would stand by their old friend. 
As for that fellow across the river, never, never would 
they take so much as a weasel skin to that lying stranger. 

“I got more than my share of the trade that fall and 
winter, and felt pretty well pleased with myself. My 
friend across the river tried all the tricks he knew, and 
then another agent of the company took his place, and he 
tried. This man sent word to the nearest Indian agent 
that I was selling whiskey to the Indians. That’s for¬ 
bidden by the government, you know. Up came some sol¬ 
diers to look my place over. An Indian friend had told 
me they were coming long before they got here. They 
found nothing, I fed them well, and they went back and 
reported that John Farnsworth was a good, honest 
trader. 

“Then that next fall the Indians began to desert me 
and carry their pelts across the river. They would come 
in here, talk trade, cross the river, and not come back. 
I knew what that meant. Up had gone the price of beaver 
skins over across there. Never before had the Indians 
been able to get so much red calico or so many beads for 


172 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

a pelt. The big company figured to take a real loss on the 
trade, knowing very well I couldn’t match their prices, 
or if I did I would soon ruin myself. It looked like ruin 
to me either way. The company had worked that trick 
many times with success, so I had learned at Mackinac. 
I knew very well that the minute they had driven me out, 
down would go the price of fur again. But no use trying 
to make the red men understand that. 

“I was worried, now, I can tell you. I had some money, 
but not near enough to beat the great fur company at its 
own game. I did a pile of thinking. Finally I made up 
my mind what I was going to do. You’re going to be 
surprised when I tell you. 

“Next morning I got out my canoe. In it I placed a 
bundle containing some things I had picked out with 
great care. Then I locked up my place and started up 
river. I was bound for the village of old Wonnemuck, 
quite an important chief of the Winnebagoes, and head 
of an important village some miles up the stream. He 
and I were good friends. I found the old fellow at home, 
sprawled on a blanket in front of his wigwam, blinking 
at the nice fall sunshine. I squatted down beside him. 
The chief looked at my sack, then at me, but said nothing. 
We smoked a while in silence. Then we began to talk. 
That is, I talked. Maybe he listened—I wasn’t any too 
sure of that. 

“Here’s about the line of my remarks, boiled, down 
some: ‘Wonnemuck got one old squaw, one young squaw. 
Two squaws, one little wigwam. (A grunt from old Won¬ 
nemuck about here.) Jack got one big wigwam, no 
squaw. (Another grunt.) Jack heap good friend of Won¬ 
nemuck. He giv’um fine gift. See.’ (I pulled out of my 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 173 

sack and laid in front of him about a quarter of a bolt 
of good red calico.) ‘Wonnemuck giv’um Jack young 
squaw, Spotted Fawn. She go live in Jack's wigwam, 
down river/ 

“Now this girl of Wonnemuck's had an Indian name 
which was hard to say, and which probably meant Mary 
or Lizzie or Annie in Winnebago. She had been down 
to my post many times with her people, and she was a 
fine girl. She had eyes like a fawn, and she used to wear 
a kind of a jacket made of skins of fawns still 'in the 
spots' as the hunters say. So I called this daughter of 
Wonnemuck’s Spotted Fawn. I liked her, but I had never 
felt that I wanted to be married in with the Indians. But 
here I was getting ready to do it in regular Indian fash¬ 
ion. 

“Well, the old chief looked at the calico and kept on 
smoking. He didn't say a word. So I reached down in my 
sack and pulled out one of my best knives and laid it on 
the calico. There was a gleam in old Wonnemuck’s eye 
this time, but that was all. Then out came two good long 
‘twists' of smoking tobacco; then two pounds of powder 
for the chief's gun; then, finally, a good red and yellow 
and white blanket. The sharp old fellow noticed that the 
sack at last seemed to be empty. He was getting excited, 
but he tried hard not to show it. I got up and started to 
gather up the stuff as if I was going back home. This was 
too much. He shot out one hand to stop what I was doing, 
and grunted something that meant ‘All right, we've 
traded.' 

“We were married, Spotted Fawn and I, and next day 
here she was, bustling around this cabin of mine, cleaning 
it out and doing her best to make me comfortable and 


174 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

happy. She was quick-witted and in no time at all she 
learned to cook paleface style, talk English, and even 
check up on the furs that came in. Nobody ever had a 
nicer wife than I have. 

“Oh, yes, the fur trade. Well, I 'took the trick’ that 
time all right. Wonnemuck was an important citizen in 
the Winnebago tribe, and respected by the Pottawot- 
tamies, too. All the Indians felt closer to me now, for I 
was almost one of them. They came and traded with me, 
even though I couldn’t pay top prices for their fur. 
Everything was fine again. 

“Now I’ll have to tell you about the last attempt the 
big fur company made to get me out of here. Then it’ll 
be time for everybody to get some sleep. Spotted Fawn 
has been getting some beds ready for all of you, so don’t 
think about setting up your tents for tonight. The com¬ 
pany man across the river was getting desperate by this 
time, of course. I didn’t know it at the time, but slowly 
he began work on a last plan to get rid of me. Drifting 
around from one Indian village to another at this time 
were quite a few young bucks who didn’t really belong 
to any tribe. Most of them had been canoemen, at one 
time or another, for fur traders. Some of them could 
jabber quite a little English or French, and all of them 
were hard drinkers when they got half a chance. They 
were a bad lot, with no faith in the Indian gods, or in the 
medicine men, despised by the true Indians and by the 
white men, too. We called them 'renegade Indians.’ Well, 
Mr. Company Man gradually got about a dozen of these 
fellows together and filled them full of lies about me. He 
gave them plenty of firewater, and one afternoon, when 
there were no visitors around, he got ready to set this 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 175 

half-drunk outfit onto me. Not to kill me if they could 
help it; I was liked too well by the good Indians for that. 
But to scare me and threaten me, and perhaps handle 
me pretty rough. If I could be made to think that my 
life was in danger I would be glad to pull up stakes and 
move. Anyway I s’pose that's the way the agent figured. 

“I was sorting furs in the back room that afternoon. 
Spotted Fawn was up the river looking for blackberries. 
All at once my front door was kicked open and in 
swarmed a dozen of these renegades. They had knives in 
their hands or belts and they were about half drunk. They 
dove into the back room and dragged me out to the main 
room. They pushed and pulled me around, all jabbering 
at once. They were boasting what heap brave fellows 
they were, that I was a coward and a cheat. ‘Anamoose!’ 
I heard that word more than once. That means ‘dog’ and 
is about the worst swear word and the worst insult there 
is among the Indians. The scoundrels ordered me out of 
the country and vowed to scalp me if I didn’t get going. 
‘Gettum out! Run away quick. No go, scalpum! Git! Us 
brave Injins!’ and so on, 

“Was I scared? I was the scaredest paleface this side 
of Mackinac. But I tried not to let the renegades see just 
how scared I was. I figured my life was hanging by a 
thread, as they say, and the only way to make that thread 
hold was to calm those fellows down. So I didn’t fight 
back. I didn’t say a word. I just looked each of them in 
the eye, when I got a chance, very steady and serious-like. 
They didn’t hit me, or jab me with their knives, and at 
last they quit grunting and jabbering so much. Then I 
spoke: ‘So you’re brave Injins eh? Good! Now let’s see 
just how brave you are. Wait!’ 


176 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


“Out into the middle of the floor I rolled a barrel of 
gunpowder, set it on end, and took a hatchet and knocked 
in the other end. There was the shining black powder, 



in plain sight. Indian curiosity was at work now and the 
rascals were pretty quiet. 

“ ‘Here now/ I said, ‘fill your pipes and sit down and 










THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


177 


smoke/ and I passed out some of my best tobacco. ‘Sit 
down while we find out who the brave Injins are/ Pretty 
soon I had them all seated on the floor watching me while 
I took flint and steel and lighted a bit of candle not more 
than an inch long and carefully set it up in the loose gun¬ 
powder. A candle in a candlestick of more than a hun¬ 
dred pounds of powder! Those Indians were dead sober 
now. 

“ ‘Now, you brave Injins/ said I, ‘stay right here with 
me/ and I sat down among them and smoked my pipe. 
I tried to act as cool as a cucumber. 

“Well, sir, that little cabin of mine had got to be just 
about the stillest place on earth. There wasn’t a sound. 
Twelve pairs of beady black eyes were a-watching that 
little stub of candle in its dangerous candlestick. And that 
inch-long piece of candle wasn’t as long as that now. 
Second by second it grew shorter until it wasn’t much of 
a candle any more at all. By that time you could just about 
cut the silence in there. I could feel the sweat coming out 
on my forehead. Those Indians had good nerves; most 
Indians do. They hated to show the white feather after 
their boasts. So they sat and watched that flickering 
candle. They didn’t seem even to breathe. It seemed as if 
the lightest breath of air would sweep the flames of that 
candle down against the powder, and then up through the 
treetops would go one trader and twelve bad Indians, to 
be scattered pretty generally over the country. 

“All at once the nerves of one of the red men gave way. 
He gave a screech, went backward head over heels 
through the door, landed on his feet running, and scooted 
for the woods. That started things, and the other eleven 


178 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

were right at his heels. He won the race by just about a 
nose, and, I cahlate, broke all records hereabouts for 
speed. 

“You can be mighty sure I was on my feet in a second. 
I scooped up that little bit of candle off the top of the 
powder and tossed it through the door at the heels of the 
galloping braves. Then I slumped down onto a bench 
feeling pretty weak. 

“Well, the story about the barrel of gunpowder soon 
got out among the different villages. It went from wig¬ 
wam to wigwam all through the country. Indians like 
that kind of nerve, and I found myself quite a hero. In 
swarmed the Indian men from all directions, grinning 
their praise. I never had such a good trade in my life. 

“The company post across the river was a lonesome 
place in those days. I wasn’t bothered any more, and 
pretty quick the trade goods over there were canoed off 
somewheres else and the place locked up.” 

John Farnsworth rose, knocked the ashes from his 
pipe, and smiled around at us. 

“I’m the only fur trader, I guess, who ever got the bet¬ 
ter of the American Fur Company.” 

* * * 

John Farnsworth’s story gives a picture of the fur 
trade in the Great Lakes country a century and a quarter 
ago. The old wilderness, the Indian, and the little fur 
bearer still were there. The harvest of peltries still went 
on. But, in that region, the great days of the fur trade 
were drawing to a close. The lead miners were coming, 
and the lumbermen and the farmers. Axes and saws rang 
in the forest. Plows turned up the ancient forest floor. 
Cities grew where trading posts had stood. Beavers, ot- 


THE BARREL OF GUNPOWDER 


179 


ters, and martens retreated into wilder places or disap¬ 
peared altogether. The red men found themselves 
crowded into ever-narrowing reservations. There the 
money and food doled out to them by the government and 
the diseases and vices brought to them by white men 
robbed them of much that was best in their characters. 
Slowly but surely the steel trap and the beaver skin 
ceased to be the twin symbols of the Land of Many Wat¬ 
ers. 


Questions on the Story 

1. How did John Farnsworth start his trade with the Indians? 

2. What was his opinion of his Indian neighbors? 

3. Why did the great fur company locate a post near his? 

4. What reasons did John give for marrying an Indian girl? 

5. Describe the last effort of the company to drive John out of 
the country. 

6. How did it turn out? 

Things to Think About 

1. Do you agree with Farnsworth that “it takes patience to be 
a fur trader” ? 

2. Do you think he had the qualities to make him successful in 
that work? 

3. Can you use the word “monopoly” in describing the plans of 
the American Fur Company? 

4. Are any traits of Indian character brought out in this story? 

Things to Do 

1. Find the meaning of the word “renegade.” 

2. Trace on a map the exact northern boundary of the United 
States, naming and describing each section of the boundary line. 







AMONG THE SHINING 
MOUNTAINS 




A PRAIRIE MARATHON 

TT WAS the year 1806. Thomas Jefferson had been 
A president of the new United States for five years. 
The great days of the fur trade in the Land of Many 
Waters were over. But Jefferson himself had done some¬ 
thing that was to open before the eager eyes and the 
wandering feet of American trappers a big new fur king¬ 
dom. He had purchased the Louisiana territory from 
Napoleon. Having bought his “pig in a poke,” the curious 
president had decided to find out something about his 
bargain. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had led 
their famous band of explorers westward across the new 
possession. 

Now, in the summer of 1806, the dirty, ragged tents 
of the returning expedition were pitched far up on the 
muddy Missouri River. Smoke spiraled up through the 
branches of the cottonwoods that here line the bank of 
the swirling river. The men of Lewis and Clark were 
mending their outfits, cooking great haunches of buffalo 
meat, resting. They had well earned this little time of 
leisure. They had been all the way to the Pacific Ocean. 

183 






184 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

They had crossed and recrossed the Rocky Mountains. 
Now they were almost back to civilization once more. 
Almost—if you reckoned their journey in hardships to 
overcome and not in miles. The stern, up-stream battles 
in the boats, the trackless mountains, the hot, wind-swept 
plains, the days without food or water—these things 
were all behind. What was twelve hundred miles down 
the Missouri to men who had been where they'd been 
and had done what they’d done ? 

One of the tents had a tattered little American flag 
fluttering above it. Just inside the doorway of this tent 
sat Meriwether Lewis, on this particular morning, writ¬ 
ing in his journal. How carefully had he and Clark kept 
up the entries in the big book! It was to tell President 
Jefferson and the American people about the Louisiana 
Purchase: about the rivers and mountains, the grass and 
the timber, the signs of metals, the new tribes of Indians, 
the wild animals. Among the latter there would be men¬ 
tion of the beaver, for Lewis and Clark had noted how 
the western streams fairly teemed with these furry little 
engineers. 

As Meriwether Lewis wrote, a shadow darkened the 
doorway of his tent. 

‘'Oh, good morning, Colter. What’s on your mind?” 
asked Lewis of the man who stood there. 

John Colter saluted awkwardly and stepped closer. He 
was a bronzed and bearded young man, dressed wholly 
in buckskin. Everything about him made you think of 
the frontiersman rather than of the soldier. John Colter 
was one of the hunters for the Lewis and Clark expedi¬ 
tion, and all the way across the continent and back to this 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


185 


point it had been his job to keep the explorers supplied 
with meat. 

“Cap’n,” Colter spoke hesitatingly, “Cap’n, wonder if 
I could git my discharge now/’ 

“Why, Colter,” cried Lewis, “we’ve got twelve hun¬ 
dred miles ahead of us yet before we see St. Louis again. 
We’ve got to eat, you know. You’re one of the best 
hunters we’ve got. We need that good rifle of yours.” 

“Wal, Cap’n,” answered Colter, and it was clear that 
he found it harder to talk than to supply the camp with 
antelope steaks, “it’s this-a-way: I been clear to the Col- 
umby with you. You an’ Cap’n Clark is leaders a man 
could be proud to foiler anywheres. We’ve all been 
through some tough places together. But I reckon she’s 
easy sailin’ now, plumb to St. Louey. Can’t you spare me 
now ?” 

Lewis looked at the hunter curiously. “What’s in your 
head, John? Marry a Mandan squaw and settle down 
up here?” 

“No, Cap’n, no!” and Colter’s tanned face flushed at 
the very idea of such a thought in the mind of his leader. 
“No squaw man bizness fer me! But I reckon I been in 
the wilderness too long. I don’t want to go back to the 
settlements. When I look back there at them Shinin’ 
Mountains I git homesick, fer a fact. I want to go back 
into ’em, Cap’n. Them streams back there is swarmin’ 
with beaver. I been talkin’ with one of them trappers we 
met up with yesterday. We got it all planned—if I can 
git you to give me my discharge.” 

Meriwether Lewis looked for a long time at John Col¬ 
ter, and his face softened. “John, I think you’re crazy. 


186 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

The Blackfeet will be dancing around your scalp inside 
of two weeks. But—well—I feel a bit homesick myself 
when I think of giving up this wild, free life out here. I 
know how you feel. Come round in half an hour—I’ll have 
your discharge papers ready for you.” 

Well—that’s the way young John Colter came to turn 
his back on civilization when he was pretty well back to 
where its fringes began, to face once more the shaggy 
eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. His choice opened 
up before his wandering feet a trail of adventure seldom 
equaled in the frontier history of our country. 

Not the least of John’s adventures came not many 
weeks after the boats of Lewis and Clark swept from 
view down around a bend of the Missouri, leaving the 
hunter behind. John and his partner were soon making 
their way slowly upstream in their bull boat. They had 
swapped with the trappers on the river, and John had 
used a part of the wages coming to him as hunter, until 
they had finally got together a fairly complete outfit: 
plenty of ammunition, beaver traps, blankets, salt, corn- 
meal, two or three black kettles and pots. Oh, that bull 
boat? Well, that was a boat the old-timers of the West 
sometimes built to cross wide streams or to float down¬ 
river. First they built a frame of poles. Then they killed 
two buffaloes, took off their hides, shaped them, and 
stretched them over the frame. The seams where the 
hides met they sewed together with buckskin thongs and 
made watertight with a sort of glue made by mixing 
buffalo tallow with ashes. It wasn’t exactly the kind of 
boat you would want to ride out a storm in, but it was 
better than nothing. 

Not many, even among those old westerners, tried 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


187 


pushing one of those bull boats up against the current, the 
way John Colter and his partner were doing. But as it 
was a bit early yet for beaver trapping, they had plenty 
of time; and the water was at low stage and the current 
sluggish. Gradually those gleaming mountain ranges off 
there to the west loomed more vividly on the horizon. 

After a week or so the trappers left the main river and 
pushed up along one of its branches coming in from the 
southwest. Here the country was brand-new to white 
men. Colter and his comrade were looking at lands never 
before seen, probably, by any human eye save that of 
the red man. The country grew rough, too, and the moun¬ 
tains drew close about. A heavy fringe of timber wound 
along the courses of the streams. And beaver! That was 
beaver country! 

John Colter and his companion were having a glorious 
time of it. There was plenty to eat—you could get a fine 
“white tail” almost any time you wanted venison. The 
weather was fine, beaver pelts were growing into heavy 
bales—and Tnjins’? They did not see one. No smoke 
from campfires back in the hills, not even the track of a 
pony’s hoof along the stream. John Colter used to smile, 
sometimes, when he thought about the warning Captain 
Lewis had given him about the Blackfeet. Oh, John knew 
there were Blackfeet, all right. Didn’t he remember that 
time, going out with Lewis and Clark, when the red ras¬ 
cals had chased him into camp? But it was a big country, 
and John had it figured out that he and his partner were 
pretty well south of Blackfoot hunting grounds, anyway. 
They’d stick, so they would, until they had three or four 
hundred prime beaver pelts, and then they’d float off 
down to “St. Louey.” They’d make more in three months, 


188 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

so they had it figured out, than John had earned “the 
whole time he was a gov'ment hunter fer Lewis and 
Clark.” 

One morning the trappers left their snug little camp 
alongside a brisk stream, and started floating along with 
the current in their bull boat to look at their traps. Here 
and there they came to one of their stakes set pretty well 
out in the stream and marking the location of a trap. 
Beaver traps had to be set in deep water and weighted 
down to prevent Mr. Beaver from getting out on dry land 
and working himself free. Up came each stake, when the 
bull boat had drifted down to it, bringing a trap to the 
surface, usually with a drowned beaver in its claws. If 
they had not had a boat, they would have waded out to 
these stakes. Beaver trapping was wet work under such 
conditions. Down drifted the two adventurers, pulling up 
stakes and looking at traps. It seemed as if their luck 
was even better than usual this morning. And what a 
morning it was! The mountain air was clear and tin¬ 
gling; and through the aspens that lined the shore were 
glimpses of that shining mountain wall, not so far away, 
now, off there to the west and southwest. 

“Not an Injin; plenty of beaver/' thought John Colter 
exultingly, as he released a particularly big beaver from 
one of the traps. “St. Louey and the settlements! Well, 
not yet awhile fer me." 

Along there the little river had a steep bank, maybe 
thirty feet high, on the north side. On the south side was 
a gravelly bar. The bull boat was about midstream, bob¬ 
bing down toward another stake. Of a sudden our trap¬ 
pers heard a dull, thudding rumble. 

“Buffler!” was the explanation of Colter's partner. 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


189 


“Injins!” was John Colter’s. 

And “Injins” it was. 

Fifty of them, Blackfeet, brought their ponies to a 
thundering stop at the very edge of the bank above. Fifty 
pairs of fierce black eyes gazed down at the bull boat 
from underneath fifty dancing war bonnets. The trappers 
trapped! No, not yet! Overboard they went into the shal¬ 
low water and splashed and scrambled for that gravel 
bar. Make the cover of the woods first, then turn and 
fight: that was the idea. No chance. Fifty war ponies 
brought down an avalanche of sand and rock as their 
riders lashed them down over that steep bank. The water 
of the river boiled and foamed as they charged through 
it. Just as the trappers reached the bar, the Blackfeet, 
yelling like demons, were on top of them. Down they went 
in a hurricane of dust and ponies’ hoofs and whirling war 
clubs. 

After a while John Colter opened his eyes. A fleecy 
cloud seemed to be mixed up with the tops of a couple of 
aspens, and all three were whirling around and around 
in a kind of crazy dance. Was it all part of that bad dream 
he had just had? John Colter wondered vaguely about it. 
Then, suddenly, his head cleared and he remembered. 
How did it happen that he was alive at all? John tried 
moving his arms and legs a little. Not so bad! Then, very 
gingerly, he put his hand up to his head. Sore spots, all 
right—but his hair was still there. 

A low, guttural jabbering came to Colter’s ears, and, 
turning his head a little, he saw enough to drive out any 
lingering suspicions he may have had as to the reality 
of the Blackfoot war party. There they were, all right, 
some still astride their ponies, some afoot, and all keeping 


190 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

an eye on him. Over at the left one grinning rascal was 
fastening a fresh scalp to his belt. 

About this time a big, fierce-looking fellow, the war 
chief, stepped up to where the trapper lay, and with moc- 
casined foot prodded him hard in the ribs, and made signs 
for him to get up. On his feet, John was surprised to find 
himself unhurt. His body was all there, but he was as 
scared as a man could be. He expected a war club or an 
arrow to end his life any minute. But nothing happened. 
Waiting for a death-blow that did not fall, John Colter de¬ 
cided, was worse than death itself. But why didn't that 
blow fall ? These were Blackfeet. And whoever heard of 
these mounted terrors of old Montana growing chicken- 
hearted ? Then a thought came boring its way through 
John Colter's brain and sending a cold shiver down along 
his spine. Were these devils saving him for—something 
else? The trapper had heard some stories about the 
pleasantries the Blackfeet used in dealing with prisoners. 

“Keepin' me to have some fun with," groaned Colter. 
“Spread-eagled, maybe? Or the stake an' a slow fire?" 
Poor John Colter! He almost wished, right then, that 
his scalp was already dangling from the belt of one of 
those grim warriors. 

Now the war chief shouted directions to his waiting 
band. He had been looking the captive over, very likely, 
in order to decide whether this paleface would do for the 
next maneuver the chief had in mind. He grinned as he 
turned to his followers and issued his orders. A yell of 
delight greeted them, and the mounted Blackfeet flung 
themselves from their ponies. Fully two score of them 
hastily laid aside blankets and ornaments and weapons, 
reserving only club and knife. A few old fellows re- 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


191 


mounted and took stations where they could control the 
loose ponies. The others spread out in a long line facing 
the open prairie south of the stream. The chief and one 
of his lieutenants then seized Colter and stripped off his 
clothing until he stood almost naked on the prairie. Then 
with grunts and shoves they forced the trapper along 
ahead of them till he reached a point almost a hundred 
yards out from the line of yelling Indians, and about op¬ 
posite its center. 

By this time John Colter knew what was coming. It 
was to be the “cat-and-mouse” game of the Blackfeet, 
one of the favorite pastimes they sometimes mixed in 
with the serious business of war. This time John Colter 
was cast in the role of mouse. A race for life it was to 
be, with the odds at least fifty to one against the trapper, 
and probably much heavier than that. 

John Colter cast a look at the green prairie, at the blue 
sky overhead, at the gleaming mountain wall to the right. 
It was a beautiful world. Was this his last look at it? The 
young trapper fought to control the shaky feeling in his 
legs. “All right,” he gritted to himself between set teeth, 
“the varmint that gits my scalp will be plumb sure he’s 
been in a race.” 

The chief gave John a last shove and roared back at his 
waiting line the equivalent of “Come and get him!” With 
an answering chorus of whoops, on came the forty wait¬ 
ing Indians. The race was on. Away fled John Colter. He 
just bounded along at first, fear and desperation spurring 
him to put distance between him and those screeching 
Blackfeet. He climbed over rocks, battering his bare feet 
against them. He plowed through thorns and brambles, 
tearing gashes in his legs. In the wild excitement of the 


192 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

moment he felt little or no pain. Then his wits came back 
to him. He began to run his race with his brain, and not 
merely with his legs. He steadied his gait and slowed up. 
He dodged around the rough places. He remembered that 
in front of him was a rolling prairie, perhaps four or five 
miles across. On the far side of it, he recalled, was a fair¬ 
sized creek he and his partner had trapped, and stretched 
along it a beaver pond perhaps half a mile long and, in 
places, three or four hundred feet wide. John spared a 
glance at the sun, did a little calculating, and headed in 
the direction of that pond. 

Just after laying his course for the distant pond John 
Colter took his first good look back at his pursuers. That 
glance almost threw him into another panic. He saw that 
while he had held his own with most of the redskins, at 
least a dozen of them seemed to be gaining fast. No more 
yells back there now; no breath to spare. The racing trap¬ 
per’s breathing had steadied now, and he increased his 
speed a notch. 

Up along a sandy slope and down through a rough 
gully and across a marshy swale—and a second backward 
look. One lean red pursuer not twenty yards behind! 
This sprinting Blackfoot had clipped whole seconds off 
John Colter’s time this last half mile. Just one thing to 
do: let out more speed. The spirit in John Colter flamed 
anew and he lunged forward. But the new pace was a 
killing one. He ran until blood oozed from nostrils and 
ears. Soon his neck and chest were dyed with it. But his 
best effort seemed scarce good enough. Behind him the 
gasping, whistling breath of his pursuer sounded nearer 
and nearer. He could hear it plainly now, above the sound 
of his own mad battle for air. His eyes grew dim, his legs 



THE FUR TRADE OF THE FAR WEST 

Explanation of symbols: 1, Santa Fe Trail; 2, Oregon Trail; 3, Route of the Overlanders; 4, John Colter’s 
wanderings; 5, Hunting grounds of the Blackfeet; 6, Crow Indians; 7 , Comanches; 8, Apaches. 















































































194 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

faltered and refused at last to go on. In a last despairing 
gesture he turned to face the Blackfoot, now almost upon 
him, and threw up his arms. The tired Indian, surprised 
at this sudden move, startled, no doubt, by the gory ap¬ 
pearance of his intended victim, tried to stop, tripped, and 
came slithering to the ground in a heap. Like a wildcat 
Colter was upon him. He snatched the Blackfoot’s knife 
from its sheath and drove it home. 

New hope and fresh courage, now, for John Colter. He 
turned and trotted on, still grasping that bloody knife, 
with his nearest pursuer still fifty yards behind. 

Five minutes later the trapper broke through a 
fringe of brush, and there before him was the beaver 
pond. He lunged to its edge and stood panting for a few 
seconds, then drew his lungs full of air and dived. There 
was a splash, then silence. The ripples widened to the 
farther shore; the surface of the pond again became 
smooth and calm before the first of the pursuing Black- 
feet burst out upon the bank. 

In five minutes’ time a score of panting warriors— 
those who had stayed in the race—had appeared along 
the nearer bank of the pond. They were puzzled. The 
white man had jumped into the water—that was clear. 
But why didn’t he appear crawling out on the farther 
bank? Blackfoot reasoning showed that it was impos¬ 
sible for any swimmer to reach the opposite shore and 
disappear in the grass in the scant time that had passed 
before the first of the pursuers had appeared in sight of 
the sheet of water. He had not crawled away since the 
men of Blackfoot-land had come in sight; Blackfoot eye¬ 
sight was too keen to allow that idea even to come up for 
consideration. Still—hastily the warriors separated as 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


195 


they began a careful search of every foot of ground along 
both sides of the pond. No, that hard-running paleface 
hadn’t crawled out anywhere. No tracks along the shore 
except that one trail that led down to the water and 
stopped. Perhaps this white poacher on the tribal lands 
had swum off downstream and had crept out far below. 
Another search by ten of the Indians revealed no tracks. 
Very well, then, this quarry of theirs was still in that 
pond. Dead perhaps; perhaps in among those logs and 
water-logged tree tops down at the lower end of the pond. 
Out onto the swaying jam crawled the warriors. They 
peered and prodded and poked into every little crack and 
opening between the logs. No beaver pond, no lake any¬ 
where, ever had a closer examination than was given that 
lonely pond away up in Montana that day. The warriors 
went ashore and looked again for a trail. No luck. Then 
back to prod the pond some more. The white man surely 
was dead. That was good, but not good enough to suit the 
Blackfeet. 

As twilight came on, the grumbling warriors tramped 
away to wherever they had left their ponies. Their day 
had been almost spoiled. To be sure, Spotted Wolf was 
wearing a brand-new scalp. And the fast-running pale¬ 
face was dead at the bottom of the pond. All this was 
fitting and proper, and creditable to the great nation of 
the Blackfeet. But on the other side of the account were 
three circumstances that had brought the day’s fun to a 
gloomy conclusion. The paleface had beaten them in the 
race; that was very bad. He had killed a good Blackfoot 
warrior; that was worse. A perfectly good scalp was 
lying somewhere at the bottom of that beaver pond. 

Much later, when it had grown very dark, some prairie 


196 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

owl probably saw a wet, muddy, bedraggled form crawl 
out of the water to the oozy shore of the pond and sink 
down there and lie still for a long time. At last the form 
roused itself and crawled away through the prairie grass. 
That creeping figure was John Colter, whose nose, all 
through that long afternoon, had poked up to the surface 
of the pond between some of those floating logs just often 
enough to keep John’s soul and body together. 

In those early days old Manuel Lisa, of St. Louis, sent 
his men to trap and trade along the Missouri River in 
what we call North Dakota today. One evening, six 
weeks after the time when John Colter had crawled up 
out of his beaver pond, these trappers of Lisa’s saw 
something strange on the prairie. They could not make it 
out. Sometimes it appeared to come toward them, upright 
like a human being; then it would get down on all fours 
and crawl along; again it would flatten down in the 
prairie grass, almost out of view, and remain motionless 
for a long time. What could it be ? The trappers waited, 
and while they waited they guessed. 

“Some Injin that’s had too much firewater?” guessed 
one. 

“Some new kind of a varmint?” wondered another. 

“One of these here Injin ghosts?” a superstitious fel¬ 
low asked. 

As the weaving, stumbling figure came nearer, they 
saw what it was. “A man—and a white man, too! Naked, 
dirty, insect-bitten, bruised, battered, swollen, but a white 
man, sure’s you’re born!” 

It was John Colter. The tough old trappers took him 
into their camp, cleaned him up, dressed him, fed him a 
little weak broth, and put him into one of their bunks. 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


197 


When he came out, after two or three days and nights of 
sleeping and tossing about and sleeping again, he looked 
and acted more like a human being. He began to eat as 
only a half-starved man could eat, and his health and 
strength came quickly back to him. But he was “queer,” 
so said the trappers of Lisa. “No, not crazy, exactly, but 
plumb off his head on some things.” They questioned him 
about where he had been and what had happened. He told 
a good, straight story about his partner and about the 
trapping, and about how the Blackfeet surprised them. 
He had a likely-sounding yarn about crawling out of that 
beaver pond and wandering off south and east, eating 
roots and herbs and somehow keeping his legs carrying 
him along in the direction he thought he ought to go. 
Then along about there his story began to get wild and 
unreal. It seemed that Colter's wandering course took 
him into rough, mountainous country, and in there he 
must have gone quite crazy. The trappers tried to make 
sense of it all, and night after night, there in their cabin, 
they questioned John Colter. 

“What's that you was sayin', pardner, about them 
mountains?” 

“Steam, I said. Miles o' country like one bigb'iler, with 
white steam gushin' up through holes in the ground in a 
thousand places—sometimes steady, and sometimes jest 
once in a while, with a sound like a cannon.” 

“What do you think o' that, boys? Crazier 'n a mad 
coyote, Colter is.” 

“Steady now, John. You go to sleep. You had a bad 
dream, that's all.” 

“It wasn't a dream!” cried Colter. “I tell you, it was all 
yaller an' red an’ green around there, till I thought I 


198 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

was climbin’ a rainbow. An’ holes in the rocks with red 
an’ yaller an’ green water in ’em.” 

“Easy, now, pardner. Tomorrow, maybe, you’ll feel 
better.” 

But John Colter could not be stopped, once he started 
telling about the country he had seen. 

“Once I saw a big trout in a pool an’ I waded in 
an’ scared him into a shallow place an’ caught him. I 
killed him, and, without walkin’ three steps, I dropped 
him into water in another pool so hot that it cooked him 
in less than five minutes.” 

“Say, boys,” said one of John’s listeners, “I just got it 
figgered out where this man has been. He’s been wander¬ 
in’ around in that place them preachers back East used 
to tell about.” 

“Haw, haw, haw. John Colter’s hell, that’s what it 
was!” And the men laughed and laughed at what they 
took to be a first-rate joke. 

After a while John Colter went on down the river and 
to the settlements. People were always glad to listen to 
his story. But when he had finished they always laughed 
and put it down that John Colter was queer. He went 
back up the big old river on many other expeditions into 
the beaver country, and he ran into plenty of excitement 
on some of them. The story of his life, if it could be 
pieced together, would make a thrilling book. When he 
grew too old to wander in the foothills of those Shining 
Mountains off there to the west, he settled down near St. 
Louis. There he died peacefully in bed, with his scalp, 
which more than one band of Indians had tried to get, 
still in place on his head. 

Among the tough rascals of the early fur-trade days 


A PRAIRIE MARATHON 


199 


along the Missouri, John Colter’s steaming, rainbow- 
tinted inferno, back somewhere in the mountains, became 
a standing joke to be laughed over around the campfires 
for many a year. John Colter’s Hell. It grew into a leg¬ 
end, a legend that lasted until the secrets of that grand, 
big country were finally laid bare. 

Of course you guessed, a page or two back, where John 
Colter had been. He had wandered across that fairyland 
known to civilized people around the world today as 
Yellowstone National Park. 

Questions on the Story 

1. Why were Lewis and Clark sent west to explore the Louisi¬ 
ana Purchase? 

2. Tell the story of how John Colter fell into the hands of the 
Indians. 

3. How did he make his escape ? 

4. Many people of that day thought that John Colter must be 
crazy. Why? 


Things to Think About 

1. In this and in later stories we shall find the Indians traveling 
about on horseback. Where did their horses come from? 

2. In what parts of the Great Plains and mountain country 
would you expect to find fur-bearing animals plentiful? 

3. Have you ever been in Yellowstone National Park? Does 
Colter’s description of it “fit”? 

Things to Do 

1. Point out on a map the route traveled by Lewis and Clark on 
their journey across the western country; trace the probable route 
of John Colter. 

2. Look up the story of Sacajawea, the Bird Woman, who acted 
as guide and interpreter for Lewis and Clark. 



A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 

J EDEDIAH SMITH—Jed for short—liked his 
stump-farm home in Ohio, and he loved his father 
and mother. But to Jed it was not half so much fun to 
help on the grubby little farm as it was to roam through 
the woods and along the streams at the fringes of the 
settlement. Something deep inside him kept urging Jed 
on to a freer, wilder life than he could ever hope to have 
on a brushy Ohio farm. 

Whenever he had the chance, Jed talked with older 
men who had been in the western country—that big, new 
wonderful land out beyond the Mississippi. He pieced to¬ 
gether stories of a region far beyond that bustling town, 
St. Louis, where the land rolled away, mile upon mile, 
without a tree in sight; where craggy mountain peaks at 
last broke the western skyline, their snow-capped heads 
piercing the clouds themselves; where wild Indians, pic¬ 
turesque in their feathered war bonnets, dashed about on 
fleet-footed ponies; where herds of buffalo roamed, 
herds so large that a man on horseback would need an 
entire day to ride all the way around one of them. Before 
200 




A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


201 


Jed was twenty he had made up his mind to wander, him¬ 
self, in that dangerous, enchanted land. 

“Mother,” he said one day, when he and Mrs. Smith 
were alone in the big farmhouse kitchen, “I’m sorry, but 
I just can’t settle down here an’ be a farmer. I got to be 
movin’ along. I’m goin’ out west.” 

“Oh, Jed,” cried his mother sorrowfully, “you don’t 
know how it hurts me to hear you say that. But I knew 
it was coming, Jed, boy. I’ve seen it for years, you might 
say. You’re the living image of your granddaddy. Out¬ 
side and inside, too. He always had to be ’way out beyond 
the last settler’s cabin or he wasn’t satisfied. Nobody 
could stop his wandering ways; and there’ll be no use 
in trying to stop you, or argue you out of the notion. I 
won’t even try. But, oh, Jed, you’re so young. Won’t you 
wait, leastways till spring, before you start a-wander- 
ing?” 

At last spring rolled around again—the spring of 1822 
—and there was Jed Smith, with his pack of extra clothes 
and the long rifle his grandfather had given him, stepping 
down the gangplank of the little river steamboat that had 
brought him to St. Louis. 

What a lively town! River boats loading and unloading 
at the wharves, the darkies singing as they piled high the 
freight aboard the boats or in the big rough warehouses; 
wild looking rivermen swaggering up and down the un¬ 
paved streets. Here and there Jed saw the uniforms of 
soldiers of the United States Army. Twice, as he wan¬ 
dered up from the river, he met groups of blanketed In¬ 
dians tramping stolidly down the middle of the street. 

It was all very noisy and just a bit frightening to 
young Jed Smith as he wandered on through the strange 


202 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

town. He thought about the few dollars he carried 
wrapped in a buckskin wallet and sewed to a belt he wore 
under his clothes. But then, he thought, where there is 
so much bustle there must be work a-plenty—some kind 
of work, even if it wasn’t the sort that would take him at 
once out into the wild country. He put his small worries 
behind him and wandered on, enjoying the novel sights. 

It was fur, among other things, that was bringing the 
St. Louis of 1820 and 1830 so rapidly to the front. The 
town was becoming the most important center of the fur 
business in the entire country. To explain this, there 
was the Missouri River leading off and away for hun¬ 
dreds of miles toward the Rocky Mountains, the “Shin¬ 
ing Mountains” of John Colter’s day. Out there was 
beaver country, fresh beaver country. The hundreds and 
hundreds of streams, big and little, that fed the Missouri 
were the homes of colonies of beavers. And the Missouri 
led back to St. Louis. Thousands upon thousands of pelts 
came down to St. Louis, there to be stored, repacked, 
and sent on down the river on their way to the markets 
of the world. 

You must not think that it was any holiday affair to 
gather the fur harvest of the upper Missouri. The big 
river itself was tricky and whimsical. One year you might 
find it gouging out its bank here and building a sand bar 
there—only to find, next season, the current eating sav¬ 
agely at another point; the sand bar gone from the place 
where you dreaded to meet it and perhaps grounding 
your boat at a place where the water was deep and black 
just last year. Then there were Indians, many of them 
resentful of the coming of the white men. The plains 
to be crossed were hot and dry and windy. Drinking wa- 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


203 


ter was scarce. Courage and patience were required of 
trappers or traders in the new fur country. 

For some years before Jed Smith set foot in St. Louis, 
the fur companies had been working up the big river with 
their enterprise. We have already caught a glimpse of 
Manuel Lisa’s men on the Missouri. Then there were the 
free trappers, scores of them, who wandered about in 
the wild land alone, or in small groups, catching beavers 
and selling the pelts to the agents of the companies. 

As Jed Smith wandered on, his stocky figure moving 
with alert ease among the throngs, his blue eyes shining 
with good-humored interest in all he saw, his glance be¬ 
gan to settle, oftener and oftener, on certain groups of 
men he met. These were wild-looking fellows wearing 
complete suits of buckskin and, oftener than not, carry¬ 
ing long rifles. 

“Trappers,” thought Jed. These must be the men from 
that romantic western country Jed had been dreaming 
about. Trapping was something Jed understood. Hadn’t 
he trapped for six winters now, back there in Ohio? And 
hadn’t the storekeeper told him, only a few weeks ago, 
that he, Jed, had brought in the best lot of furs seen at 
the store in years ? Jed would find out about this trapping 
business right off. 

“You aim to be a trapper, eh?” queried one grizzled old 
fellow Jed found leaning against a hitching post at a 
busy corner. “Then you be a-hittin’ old St. Louey jest the 
right time. Read General Ashley’s call fer trappers, didn’t 
ye?” Jed had not. “There’s one on that post jest across 
the street.” 

Jed went over and eagerly read that General Ashley 
was organizing for a big expedition far up the Missouri, 


204 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

where posts were to be built, and the fur trade carried on 
on a great scale away off in the foothills of the Stony 
(Rocky) Mountains. Volunteers were called for. Jed 
Smith quivered with excitement as he read. “Wouldn’t 
it be wonderful if I could get a chance, so soon, to see 
that western country? Do you suppose?—” Jed brought 
himself out of his daydream with a snap. 

“Say, old friend, where do you reckon I could find this 
General Ashley?” 

“Take this street and foller it down to near the river. 
Then take that path leadin’ to the right up past that new 
warehouse. Say, boy, if I was twenty year younger—” 
Jed never heard the rest of that speech. He was jogging 
away at a fast trot toward the place where Ashley might 
be found. 

When the big keelboats of the expedition were ready 
to start up river, a few days later, there was Jed Smith, 
hired trapper, aboard one of them. He almost hugged 
himself, he felt so lucky and so important. He leaned on 
his long rifle and felt that he looked bold and romantic 
to the crowds down to see the great fur brigade off to a 
good start. Among the nearly one hundred men starting 
that spring morning for the new beaver country were 
many whom Jed was to learn to love and trust in the dan¬ 
gerous miles that lay before his itching foot. 

Major Henry had charge of the expedition for General 
Ashley. He was hurrying about getting ready to have 
the ropes cast off and the clumsy boats headed upriver. 
Jed saw that on the other keelboat there were nearly fifty 
horses. Stored in the canvas or leather cases heaped about 
the deck were, Jed knew, the supplies for the expedition : 
the ammunition, food, blankets, trade goods, traps, 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


205 


saddles, bridles, pack outfits. Jed had already learned that 
in the western fur trade canoes were almost unknown. 
There was nothing suitable to build them of, neither 
birch nor straight clean pines. When once the big river 
was left, all the traveling would be done on horseback 
or afoot, with the camping outfit and the beaver packs 
carried by the pack horses—if Indian raiders hadn’t 
driven off your stock and left you stranded out there 
somewhere. 

There was a yell and the boats surged out into the 
river. The heavy sweeps, manned by three or four men 
each, and long poles pushed against the bottom of the 
river, forced the boats slowly upstream. On shore the 
people shouted and waved good-bye with hats and hand¬ 
kerchiefs. The great Ashley fur brigade was off for the 
west. Among all the men Jedediah Smith was one of the 
youngest, and quite likely the very "greenest” of the lot. 
But no story of the doings of the "mountain men,” as 
they quested for "king beaver,” would be complete with¬ 
out some special account of the adventures of this tender¬ 
foot of 1822. 

Now, since this is to be only one story out of the life 
of our "knight in buckskin,” and not a complete bi¬ 
ography, we must hasten on a little faster. We’ll just let 
two whole years slip out of the life of Jed Smith. Not that 
they weren’t interesting years. Indeed, they were 
crowded brimful of excitement. What these two years of 
wayfaring did was this: they made of Jed Smith one of 
the trusted lieutenants of the Ashley company. He earned 
the right to be a leader by being cool, sober, and indus¬ 
trious, by being honest and brave, by letting his deeds, 
not his words, show what kind of young man he was. 


206 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Among men who were often to be found cursing and 
bragging, Jed Smith remained gentle and soft-spoken. 
Around the campfire at night, when most of the trappers 
were roaring out their coarse jokes and songs, you would 
find young Jed sitting apart reading by the flickering 
light from a little book. That little book was the Bible, the 
one his mother had given him that morning he left home 
—years and years ago, it seemed now. That worn little 
book was never out of Jed’s possession in all the years 
that followed. There must have been many a long march 
when Jed needed to spare himself every extra ounce of 
burden for even his tough shoulders, yet his mother’s 
little Bible was always packed in somewhere. 

Two years roll along—and here we are this late sum¬ 
mer morning somewhere in Wyoming, far south of the 
main camp of the trappers up on the Yellowstone River. 
And here is our Jed, clad in buckskin from shirt to moc¬ 
casins, bronzed, bearded, his long rifle in the crook of 
his arm. About him are gathered more than twenty other 
mountain men, while two score horses, ready for the 
trail, munch the short grass. A wisp of smoke rises from 
a dying campfire. A wild looking group they must have 
made, those trappers. The heavy beards hid young faces, 
for the most part. Tom Fitzpatrick was there, and Jim 
Bridger, and William Sublette. Sublette, a few years la¬ 
ter, would show the world how wagons can travel all the 
way from the Missouri to Oregon. This encouraged ac¬ 
tual settlers to take up the long journey, and the farms 
they made in Oregon gave our government its best claim 
to the far western lands. 

Jim Bridger was to become curious about a certain 
great, salty lake down there in Utah. “Is it an arm of the 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


207 


Pacific Ocean? Must be, the water’s salt, isn’t it?” argued 
the trappers. So Jim built a bull boat and poled and 
paddled his way around the entire shore line to prove 
that Great Salt Lake is a lake, after all. 

“All right, Tom.” It is Jed Smith speaking. “These 
five men will foller me over onto that river the Crows was 
tellin’ us about. You an’ the rest are goin’ to look into 
the beaver-catchin’ prospects down south’ard along the 
branches of this stream. Meet here in two months, and 
all git back up to camp before the real winter ketches us. 
That’s our plan, then?” 

“Right,” answered Fitzpatrick. “Good luck, mountain 
men.” 

The trappers mounted and caught up the lead ropes 
of the pack horses. Tom led his men southward along 
the river, while Jed and his comrades rode up out of the 
ravine and set out across the rolling country to the west. 
Two days’ travel brought the six mountain men to a fine, 
sparkling stream flowing to the north. They turned up¬ 
stream and began setting their traps. 

Glorious autumn days followed. Beavers were plenti¬ 
ful. Mule deer kept the trappers well supplied with food. 
At times Jed and his men camped for several days in one 
spot, set their traps up and down the main stream or 
along its branches, and hunted or idled about in the mel¬ 
low sunshine. When the round of the traps showed a 
lessening harvest, the trappers broke camp and wandered 
on a few miles farther, leading pack horses laden with 
ever-growing bales of beaver pelts. 

This was just the sort of free, wild life Jed Smith had 
dreamed of. To him there was a thrill in picking a trail 
through a land where no white man had been before him. 


208 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Each evening there was sure to be plenty of juicy veni¬ 
son, roasted over the open fire. After the meal was over, 
the six men lay on their blankets, feet to the fire, and 
smoked and talked. 

Often there were amusing incidents of the day's trap¬ 
ping to be discussed and laughed over. Then, too, it was 
exciting to speculate about what lay around the next 
bend of the river, or to try in advance to estimate their 
profits from the season’s catch of beaver. 

“What a life this is!” was the thought that came often 
to Jed Smith as he lay curled in his blanket and drowsily 
watched the sparks eddy in the updraft of the fire, to 
wink out, at last, against the blue-black of the starry 
night. 

Then, one evening, this pleasant, half-dreamy life of 
the wanderers came to a sudden end. They found them¬ 
selves facing a grim, pressing problem. Jed and two of 
his men had been down along the stream resetting some 
of the traps. Jed himself had just scrambled up from the 
river bank and was crawling through a thicket to higher 
ground, when there rose before him the great, hairy form 
of a grizzly bear, that most dangerous animal of the 
western country. Jed had no time for a quick shot, no 
chance to turn and run. The shaggy monster was on him 
in an instant, and Jed went down with the beast’s hot 
strong breath in his face. A great muscular forepaw, 
armed with four-inch claws, crashed down. Jed felt a 
quick, darting agony, then darkness. 

When the mountain man opened his eyes it was upon 
a world of pain. Dimly he saw the glow of the evening 
campfire, vaguely he felt the arms of his friends letting 
him down gently on his blankets. Then he slipped away 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 209 

again into that awful black sea, rising again to its surface, 
hours afterward, it seemed, to see again the forms of his 
friends as they bent over him, and to feel their gentle 



hands as they dressed his wounds and tried to make him 
comfortable. 

“Plumb good shootin’, Jim,” Jed heard a low-voiced 











210 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

remark. “Right through the eye. Anywheres else and 
Jed’d be a goner now. Ain’t them grizzlies big critters, 
though? Bet this old devil weighs dost to half a ton.” 

Jed stirred a little, and his companions, hearing the 
sound, turned back to him. “Easy now, Jed, don’t move 
more’n you can help. Hip’s smashed up some, but we got 
her bound up good and tight. Lot o’ blood lost from them 
claws and teeth, but no wounds very deep. You’ll be all 
right, ol’ timer.” 

“There, Jed, how’s that?” asked another, as he made 
a pillow of his own blanket and slipped it under the 
wounded man’s head. “Here, take a good big drink o’ 
this, now, an’ you’ll feel better.” 

Slowly the long night hours dragged by with Jed Smith 
passing from dull, troubled sleep to pain-wrenched wake¬ 
fulness and back again. And over beyond the fire, five 
men talked in low tones the whole night through. What 
was to be done? Jed couldn’t be moved for a long time, 
even if he pulled through. And the Yellowstone winter 
camp was three hundred miles away. There was Fitz¬ 
patrick, too, expecting to meet them in five weeks more. 
Here is the plan they at last decided on: two of them, 
Jim and Hank, were to stay with Smith, nurse him, tend 
the traps, and wait. The other three were to start at once 
on horseback, to find Fitzpatrick. He must be told what 
had happened, because at best that old grizzly had made 
it necessary for the entire outfit to be working back to¬ 
ward the winter camp earlier than planned. If Jed could 
travel at all, even by the time Tom Fitzpatrick and his 
men could get here, it would be slow work. 

At daylight the three messengers gathered around 
Jed’s blanket, pressed his hand silently, mounted, and 
rode off to the east. 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


211 


Three days passed. Jed would live, all right. Those long 
deep slashes from grizzly claws and teeth were healing. 
But that hip was bad. How could he travel to the winter 
camp with a smashed hip ? Jim and Hank wondered about 
that. 

Night was coming on now, the fourth night since Jed’s 
mishap. The crippled man lay by the fire, poking it with 
a long stick. He was cheerful, for he had been pretty 
free from pain all day, except when he tried to move. Jim 
and Hank were down by the river looking at some of the 
traps. 

“Almost time, now, for the boys to be cornin’ in,” 
thought Jed. A warm, tender feeling swept over him, a 
feeling he used to have, sometimes, when he was a boy, 
and his mother was looking after him. What good part¬ 
ners Jim and Hank were! And what nurses—almost as 
good as his mother used to be. “Boys’ll be in any minute 
now. Me, I’m hungry. That’s a sure sign I’m a-gettin’ 
better. Hope Hank’ll let me have a good big chunk o’ 
that deer haunch.” 

Then, of a sudden, the early evening quiet was scat¬ 
tered and broken by a harsh clatter of sound: shrill blood¬ 
curdling whoops, the heavy boom of rifles, the sounds of 
a struggle, harsh, exultant cries, then silence. Jed 
struggled to a sitting position, his ear strained to catch 
the next sound. That sudden clamor came from the creek, 
where the boys had gone. Then there arose a new sound, 
the clatter of ponies’ hoofs, crackling brush, then low, 
guttural voices. The noises came nearer, second by 
second. 

Jed Smith, forgetful of smashed hip and scarce-closed 
wounds, seized rifle, ammunition, flint and steel, and 
dragged himself in desperation toward a clump of aspens 


212 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

and dropped from view, weak and giddy, just as a dozen 
Indians jerked their ponies to a plunging stop at the edge 
of the little camp. Quickly they rounded up the tethered 
ponies. Blankets and camp outfit were gathered in as 
spoils of war. Two fresh scalps, flourished exultingly, 
told their own tale. Three braves, beating through the 
thicket on the chance of gathering in another scalp or 
fresh plunder, stood at the very edge of Jed’s hiding 
place. Just as the sight on Jed’s rifle came to a wavering 
stop in line with a bare, bronzed chest, the war chief, over 
by the campfire, grunted a sudden command. Instantly 
the warriors sprang to their ponies and, wheeling, fol¬ 
lowed their leader off into the gathering night. Soon the 
last clattering hoof beats died away. 

Silence then as Jed Smith lay, little more than a boy, 
with a crushed hip and freshly-opened wounds, a thou¬ 
sand miles from even the edge of civilization. No white 
man, probably, was within a hundred miles. Jed, sick and 
alone, trembled in his thicket by a nameless stream some¬ 
where out in Wyoming. Can you imagine how any one 
could be in a worse situation? After long hours Jed 
crawled back to where the campfire had been and, with 
flint and steel, contrived to make a fire. Morning came 
at last. 

The wounded man felt better when the sun showed 
above the line of bluffs to the east. But he kept puzzling 
over the questions: “How long will it take for the men 
to find Fitzpatrick? How long before.a relief party can 
get back to me here? How long does it take for a man to 
starve to death ?” That last thought stirred him to act. He 
set his teeth grimly and began crawling down the river’s 
bank and on to the nearest beaver trap. Through the clear 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


213 


water he could see that the nearest trap was empty. An¬ 
other slow painful crawl brought him to the second, and 
this time to a beaver. A seemingly endless time was re¬ 
quired to bring that trap ashore with a pole and get the 
plump beaver out of it. Here was food. Back in camp the 
beaver steaks, roasted at the end of a sharp stick, brought 
back life and hope to Jed Smith. 

Three times the sun rose, wheeled slowly across the 
sky, and set behind distant mountain ridges. There were 
no more beavers in the nearby traps, and Jed was too 
weak to get farther from camp. Just after sunset of the 
third day the wounded man started up out of a stupor 
to see a buck stepping daintily down for his evening drink 
at the stream. Jed’s rifle roared, and again the danger of 
starvation passed for a time. For three days Jed fed well 
on venison, but it was a hard task to keep the crows and 
buzzards from robbing him of his kill. Then the meat 
spoiled, and the waiting scavengers took their reward. 

No more game. Days passed—Jed did not know how 
many—with never a living thing that could be eaten com¬ 
ing within range of his gun. At last there came an after¬ 
noon when the mountain man was roused from fitful 
sleep by the sound of splashing in the stream. Three deer 
this time! Flame belched from the wavering muzzle of 
Jed’s gun, the water boiled up twenty feet short of the 
target, and the deer went bounding away out of range. 
Despair clamped down on the heart of Jed Smith until he 
turned, as he had so often done, to that small worn Bible. 
There he read words that kept alive in him a faint spark 
of hope. 

The buzzards hovered close above Jed Smith now, and 
waited. 


214 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Toward the end of a long, weary day there came from 
down the creek the far-off clatter of horses’ hoofs. In¬ 
dians? Jed was almost past caring. There were voices— 
words—words Jed could now and then catch. White men 
were coming, his partners at last. In a few minutes the 
three messengers, Tom Fitzpatrick himself, and half a 
dozen of his men, rode into camp. 

“Hi, thar, Jed, oY timer. Here we be.” 

“You’re lookin’ peaked, but you pulled through, moun¬ 
tain man, didn’t you?” 

“Where’s Jim and Hank?” 

“What’s the matter, Jed? What? Injins lifted their 
hair ?” And the first rejoicings died away in thoughts of 
poor Jim land Hank, who would blaze no more trails in 
the land of the beaver. 

Next morning the trappers cut two poles, each about 
twelve feet long; then they fitted two of the pack horses 
with a sort of rope harness having a strong loop dangling 
at each side. The ends of the two poles were pushed into 
the loops on either side of one horse, the other animal 
was backed into position, and the other pole ends were 
brought up to the loops and put in place and fastened 
there. Next a hammock of blankets was contrived be¬ 
tween the two poles. Careful hands hoisted Jed Smith 
into the “horse-litter,” ready for the long ride back to 
the winter camp. An hour after sunrise Jed Smith saw 
the last of his forlorn little camp where so much suffering 
had come to him. 

Near the spot where the two parties of mountain men 
were to join forces was a camp of roving Cheyennes. 
The old medicine man there took Jed in hand and proved 
to be a good doctor. Jed’s general health grew better, 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


215 


and only that smashed hip kept him off his feet. In a 
week's time, with a whoop and a volley, the rest of 
Fitzpatrick’s men came pounding- into camp. What ex¬ 
cited talk there was that night around the campfires! 
There was Jed’s tale, which he had to tell over and over. 
And there were the stories gathered from bands of In¬ 
dians about new and better beaver country still farther 
to the west. “Better! Who ever saw a finer bunch o’ 
beaver pelts than those we’ve got right here ?” 

Then away jingled the whole band of trappers, head¬ 
ing toward the snug winter camp awaiting them on the 
Yellowstone. It was cold and crisp now, and the big 
snows might come at any time. As the trappers rode, 
Tom Fitzpatrick nosed his horse up beside Jed’s litter, 
and the two men talked. Out of those talks grew plans 
which carried the mountain men, during the next few 
years, all through the western country from Wyoming 
to the Pacific, from the mountains of Montana to the 
deserts of Nevada. 

How grim and hard were those wild, shaggy, adven¬ 
turous mountain men on the outside; how gentle and 
kindly, ofttimes, within. Most of Ashley’s men found 
their graves out in the big free country they searched 
for and found. Softer men came after them, followed 
their trails already growing dim, and hurried back to 
civilization to tell about the “discoveries” they had made, 
taking the credit that belonged to those hardy trappers 
of the long ago. 

But let us return to Jed Smith. He recovered from his 
injury and became the boldest and most tireless of all the 
mountain men. He earned the title of “Rocky Mountain 
Smith,” and that is his title among the historians of the 


216 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

West. It is said that he traveled fifteen thousand miles, 
much of that distance on foot. That is three-fifths of the 
distance around the earth. 

And now for the end of the story, the part that, per¬ 
haps, should not be told. It would be fine to be able to 
tell you that Jed Smith spent a long life among the “shin¬ 
ing mountains” he loved so much; and that out there 
in the “inland empire” he helped to explore, on some high 
mountain, there is a monument marking the grave of 
Rocky Mountain Smith—some such monument as Buf¬ 
falo Bill and Helen Hunt Jackson have out there. But 
our story does not end that way. 

Instead, we peer through rolling dust clouds and there 
we see Jed Smith, at the last, toiling along over the burn¬ 
ing southern sands. Water! Jed's trading caravan, mov¬ 
ing southwest along the Santa Fe Trail, is in terrible 
trouble. Men and oxen are almost dead for the want of 
water. So here is the veteran mountain man—Jed is 
thirty-three now—alone, making a despairing search for 
water. At length he stumbles into the valley of the Cimar¬ 
ron River. Dry! Dry as a bone! Jed Smith drops to his 
knees and, at the lowest point he can find, begins scooping 
out the sand with his hands. The sand becomes moist, 
then wet. Jed scoops out more sand and waits. At last the 
hole begins slowly to fill with water. Jed, sprawling on 
the sand, lowers his head to drink. 

At that instant a band of ambushed Comanches rise 
from their hiding place where they have been lying in 
wait, and let fly a shower of arrows. 

Next day the toiling wagon train, following the trail 
of the mountain man, reached the little water hole. There 
in the shifting sands the men dug a grave for the leader 


A KNIGHT IN BUCKSKIN 


217 


who had given his life for his comrades. With the body 
of the knight in buckskin was buried that worn little 
Bible. 


Questions on the Story 

1. Why was St. Louis well located for the fur trade? 

2. What was that town like when Jed Smith first set foot in 
it? 

3. How did the fur traders and trappers get from St. Louis 
out into the fur country? 

4. Tell about the terrible experience Jed had with the grizzly 
and the Indians. 

5. How was the horse litter made that was to carry the crippled 
Jed Smith back to the winter camp? 

Things to Think About 

1. Does it seem to you that the title, “knight in buckskin/’ fits 
Jed Smith? 

2. The search for peltries in the Far West was unlike the fur 
business in the East in many ways. Have you made note of the 
main differences? 


Things to Do 

1. Learn to locate on a large map the Missouri River, the 
Blackfoot and the Crow hunting grounds, the Santa Fe Trail, and 
the Cimarron River. 

2. Make a list of the things you think a trapper would need 
on a long expedition out toward the Rocky Mountains. 



THE NIGHT RAIDERS 

HpHE Ashley men pushed their boats and tugged at 
their boats and slowly fought their way against the 
strong current of the Missouri. Once or twice they had 
to fight the Indians, too. But at last they were far up in 
what is now Montana. Here “beaver sign” became plen¬ 
tiful. Major Henry had a snug post built and prepared his 
men to go out along the streams to trap beavers. 

Away went the trappers, in small bands, each man 
carrying his long rifle, and with a pistol and a knife 
stuck in his belt. The men who were to go farthest along 
the streams were mounted on wiry ponies, many of which 
had been bought from the Sioux and Mandan Indians 
along the Missouri. But all the trappers, whether 
mounted or afoot, led behind them pack horses carrying 
the supplies of jerked meat, the blankets, kettles, extra 
ammunition, traps, and perhaps, a small lot of trade 
goods. On the return trip to camp the horses would carry 
the packs of beaver pelts. At night, wherever camp might 
218 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


219 


be made, the horses were carefully picketed nearby. If 
the trappers suspected that Indians were anywhere about, 
they took turns sitting up and watching the picketed 
horses all night. Almost the worst luck that could befall 
them would be to have their horses stampeded or driven 
off. Then how could they move their outfits up the streams, 
or bring back the heavy packs of skins ? 

There was a great beaver population around the head¬ 
waters of the Missouri. But Montana was populated, 
also, by the Blackfoot tribe of Indians. They were the 
doughty warriors who had given Lewis and Clark so 
much trouble; and it was they, you recall, who had given 
poor John Colter such a chase. The Blackfeet would have 
no palefaces trapping on their hunting grounds. They 
were great riders, hard fighters, and cruel captors. Major 
Henry learned that his trappers had to spend most of 
their time guarding against surprise by the Indians; they 
could set their traps, take out the beavers, and reset 
only between the times when they were on the lookout 
for their red enemies. This kind of trapping did not pay 
very well. The leader made up his mind to send his trap¬ 
pers south into Wyoming; then if they worked upstream 
along the branches of the Yellowstone River, their gen¬ 
eral direction would be southward, away from the ter¬ 
rible Blackfeet. 

To be sure, the Crow Indians were in Wyoming, but 
that tribe was more friendly. At their worst, they were 
more likely to go off with the white man’s horse than 
with his scalp. So the trappers moved toward Wyoming, 
trapping as they went. They carried along on their pack 
horses supplies enough for the whole trapping season. 

Once well down in the Crow country, the trappers di- 


220 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

vided into smaller bands, each doing its trapping along a 
different stream. The Powder River, the Big Horn, the 
Tongue, and Crazy Woman Creek were all trapped in 
this way. In an earlier story we have seen Jed Smith lead¬ 
ing one of these small bands of trappers. Tom Fitzpat¬ 
rick was another of the mountain men who led his trap¬ 
pers down into Wyoming. 

Tom thought hard about a certain scheme that was 
forming in his mind. Perhaps his thoughts ran like this: 

“Yes, this is pretty good beaver country. But if it’s 
good here, how much better it must be over west of those 
long lines of mountain peaks over there. Nobody’s ever 
trapped there, that’s sure as shootin’. Now if a man could 
only find'a nice, easy pass through them mountains—” 
Thus his thoughts wandered on and on. 

As Tom dreamed, he and his men came one day to a 
camp of the Crows nestling among the aspens on a creek 
away down in central Wyoming—or what we call Wy¬ 
oming today. The old chief, Wounded Antelope, was 
friendly. Best of all, he had been over on the Missouri 
often enough to pick up a smattering of English from 
the trappers there. Presently Tom Fitzpatrick began 
quizzing the friendly old fellow about the country and, 
of course, about those mysterious mountains off there to 
the west. Here was the answer he finally pieced together 
from Wounded Antelope’s jargon: 

“Beaver, um? Heap beaver here; more beaver over 
where sun go down. Um. White man crossum big hills ? 
Ugh! Bad over there,” and he pointed to the northwest; 
“good here (west) ; go five sleeps here (south) ; findum 
river; go up four sleeps. Here big hill, there big hill; 
hill all over. Go on just same. Pretty quick no hill straight 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


221 


on, so. Big drink here; no more water two sleeps. Pretty 
quick findum little river goin’ so (west). Three sleeps, 
you come no more big hills, plenty beaver/’ 

“Hey, boys,” shouted Tom to his men. “Here’s some¬ 
thin’. Old Crow here’s been tellin’ me how to get across 
them Shinin’ Mountains. Who’s ready to make a try at 
it?” 

An answering shout told Tom all he wanted to know. 

Next morning the party started. There were fifteen 
men, all well mounted. Ten pack horses carried supplies, 
traps, and blankets. Away jogged the mountain men to 
the south, the trappers bearded, buckskin-clad, each with 
his long rifle across the pommel of his saddle. Tom Fitz¬ 
patrick, his black eyes scanning the country on every 
side, rode ahead. Squeak of leather, jingle of bits, and 
snatches of rough song broke the early morning silence 
as the fifteen adventurers rode on across open, rolling 
country. 

Everything turned out just as Wounded Antelope had 
said. At the end of five days’ hard riding they came to 
a fine little river flowing east. The trappers turned up this 
river toward the west. They named it the Sweetwater; 
you can find it on your maps. 

When the frowning mountain wall at length seemed 
to bar their way, they pushed straight on and found that 
the sandy plain they followed turned and twisted its way 
in among the shaggy peaks. More twists, and then the 
trappers saw the mountains fading away behind them, 
broad open plains ahead. A day or so of hard riding 
through waterless country and there, sure enough, was 
a small clear stream leading toward the west. Fitzpat¬ 
rick’s band had passed over to the Pacific side of the 


222 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Rocky Mountains, scarcely knowing they had done so. 

Did you ever hear of South Pass? It became as im¬ 
portant to trappers and settlers and men of the United 
States Army, and, later, to railway engineers, as Cum¬ 
berland Gap in the Appalachian ridges had earlier been 
to Daniel Boone and John Sevier and the other hardy 
men who went into the lands of our first West, in Ken¬ 
tucky and Tennessee. Tom Fitzpatrick and his men were 
the first white men to trace this route from east to west 
through the Rockies. Perhaps you can see, now, why 
these trappers of the great West should be remembered 
as something more than mere trappers. They were true 
explorers, and the things they learned were of great 
aid to the settlers who followed them years later. Per¬ 
haps, for example, Oregon and Washington would not 
be a part of the United States today if Tom Fitzpatrick 
had not “blazed” the trail through South Pass in 1825. 

But the story about the Fitzpatrick men is really just 
beginning. They followed their growing mountain 
stream until it flowed into a big southward-moving river, 
the Green, which unites with others to form the mighty 
Colorado River. Here the trappers went into camp and 
began looking into the beaver situation along the 
branches of the Green. “Plenty beaver,” old Wounded 
Antelope had said. He had not exaggerated. Never had 
the trappers seen “beaver sign” so plentiful as here. Vir¬ 
gin country, this was. The men reveled in the thought 
that they were gazing on sights every day that had prob¬ 
ably never before been seen by the eye of white man. 
They reveled, too, no doubt, in thoughts of the profit 
they would have from the season’s catch. Of course, it 
was a long way back to old “St. Louey,” but why worry 
about that yet ? 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


223 


Not a sign of Indians did the trappers see. Each night 
there was plenty of fresh roast venison, or elk steaks, 
and each night there was a new lot of beaver pelts fresh 
from the sparkling moun¬ 
tain waters. What a coun¬ 
try, and all theirs! 

“Jest think, fellers,” 
said young Jim Bridget* 
one night, as the men sat 
smoking about their camp¬ 
fire, “here we are, plumb 
fifteen hundred mile from 
St. Louey. Fifteen men 
an’ a million square miles 
o’ country. When I was 
a little shaver goin’ to 
school back home we read 
one day about a feller 
named Robinson Crusoe. 

They was some verses 
about him, too, an’ I ain’t 
forgot one o’ the remarks 
this feller who had a whole island to hisself made: T’m 
monarch of all I survey’; that was it. That’s jest what we 
are: monarchs of all we survey.” 

After a brief silence another man spoke up from the 
other side of the eddying smoke column: “How fur do 
you reckon it is, Tom, to the nearest white settlement 
right now ? A thousand miles ?” 

“No, Bill, not so fer as that,” answered Fitzpatrick. 
“Remember what we heard about the fur-trade posts out 
on that river they call the Columbia ? Northwest of here. 
That’s where that New Yorker, Astor, started in, but 





224 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

sort of got froze out by some Scotchmen workin' for 
a big Canadian company. Can't be more'n six-eight hun¬ 
dred miles over there onto the Columbia from here.” 

“Sho!” cried the other. “This kentry's gettin’ too 
crowded fer me.” 

There was a laugh, and then the leader spoke up: 
“Let's take to our blankets now, boys. If we make the 
rounds of all them traps up on that west fork of the river 
tomorrow we'll need good legs. Eight hours' sleep'll help 
us have 'em.” 

One man went to look at the picketed horses. “No need 
of a horse guard at night out here; not an Injin in the 
country.” Thus argued the adventurers. Another man 
carefully banked the fire. When the rifles had been cov¬ 
ered to keep out the dampness, each man rolled up in 
his blankets. Soon the calm starry night wrapped the 
camp in silence except for the browsing horses moving 
about their picket stakes and the yelping of the coyotes, 
which seemed a little nearer and noisier than usual to¬ 
night. But what sleepy mountain man was going to worry 
about that? 

Hour after hour slipped by as usual. The men slept as 
only tired men, breathing the good air of the high coun¬ 
tries, can sleep. Then suddenly, two hours before day¬ 
break, the prairie woke to sudden life: wild yells, the 
thud of hoofs, the hissing sound of whips, the squealing 
of fear-maddened horses. Up jumped the trappers, rifles 
in hand. A few quick shots were fired at dim figures 
careening past. It was like shooting at something con¬ 
jured up in dreams. The sound of pounding hoofs died 
away; there was a taunting chorus of exultant yells off 
there in the darkness. These, too, sank to nothing, and 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


225 


down came the silence of the lonesome land again like 
a blanket. Fifteen trappers, standing and wondering 
whether it had all been a bad dream, looked at each other 
in silence. 

“Boys,” said Fitzpatrick after a time, “stir up the fire 
an’ set down. Not a thing we can do till daylight. An' 
don’t expect to git any more shootin’ tonight. There’ll 
be nothin’ to shoot at. Them was Injins, o’ course. They 
wasn’t after our scalps. They jest wanted our hossflesh. 
And my guess is that every animal we own is puttin’ dis¬ 
tance between us an’ him, right now, with a screechin’ 
In jin layin’ on the lash from behind at every jump.” 

Sure enough, when morning came not a horse was visi¬ 
ble anywhere. And there was the trail, a broad one, lead¬ 
ing off to the north. “Fifty horses at least,” stated the 
best tracker in the party. “We had twenty-five. So that 
figgers the red varmints at about twenty-five.” 

“Let’s start after ’em right now,” cried one excited, 
vengeful trapper, “We’re stranded here without horses. 
And all our fur—” 

“Easy now,” interrupted Tom. “Remember, we’re 
afoot. Let’s talk everything over cool-like. But breakfast 
first.” 

After breakfast the mountain men held their council 
of war. Most of them talked as though they wanted to 
fight all the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains. They 
were angry enough to do it. Finally they all came around 
to Tom’s way of looking at the problem. 

“Sure, we got to have hosses. And I’m for follerin’ 
this bunch o’ rascals till we git our own animals back. 
But not yit. Them Injins won’t travel fast after the first 
day. Chances are their villages ain’t so far off, anyways. 


226 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

They’ll go there, an’ if there’s no sign of pursuit they’ll 
git careless an’ fergit all about us. Then it will be time 
to move. Besides, we’re here fer beaver. The cricks is full 
of ’em. Why not stay right here and keep on trappin’ till 
we have a few more packs ? Then hide the whole outfit an’ 
travel light an’ hit that trail an’ stick to it till we all 
feel a good hoss between our legs again. What do you 
say, boys ?” 

Every man voted for Tom's plan, and the trapping 
went on. After a few days Fitzpatrick decided that they 
had on hand as many packs of beaver pelts as could pos¬ 
sibly be taken across the mountains to the Ashley head¬ 
quarters, even with the best of luck. He then set two men 
at work ’preparing a good supply of dried and smoked 
meat, while the others worked almost as hard as beavers 
getting those precious bales of fur into a safe place. 

First they dug a deep hole in a sandy spot, leaving the 
entrance small and hollowing out the interior until they 
had a jug-shaped cave. The dirt taken out was carefully 
placed on buffalo skins. Then the cave was lined with 
dry grass and brush, and the fur bales were carefully 
packed in. Enough earth from the buffalo robes was then 
used to finish filling the cave and its entrance level full. 
The original sod was put back in place and the extra pile 
of dirt on the robes was carried on them to the river 
and dumped into the stream. To complete the job, a good 
fire was built over the mouth of the cave (“cache,” the 
mountain men would have called it) and allowed to burn 
itself out; afterwards, the ashes were scattered about 
over the spot. 

“There!” cried Tom Fitzpatrick. “Injins is smart, but 
if there’s a redskin eye anywhere sharp enough to lead 
its owner to that cache he’s welcome to the finest bunch 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


227 


o’ beaver skins that was ever got ready for St. Louey.” 

Next morning the fifteen trappers took up the still dis¬ 
tinct trail of the horse thieves. Each man carried his 
rifle, plenty of ammunition, and a sack containing a few 
pounds of dried and smoked meat. That was all. The first 
day was long and warm and hard. It seemed hopeless for 
men on foot to try to catch wily red thieves on horse¬ 
back. The second day and the third were like the first. 
Then the mountain men noticed something. The distances 
between the Indians’ campfires were shorter. The trail 
showed that the horses had dropped down to a dogtrot, 
and the hoofprints were fresher. The confident Indians, 
sure there would be no pursuit, were loitering. The hardy 
mountain men, on the trail sixteen hours a day, were ac¬ 
tually gaining. The horse hunt was becoming exciting. 

It was no longer wise to travel by daylight. Tom and 
his companions began sleeping by day and traveling by 
night. This was slower work but surer of good results. 
Finally the time came when the scouts, who kept far 
ahead of the main party, came hurrying to Tom with the 
report he was waiting for. 

“Tepees ahead. Forty of ’em. Down behind a bluff, 
they are, on a little crick havin’ quite a strip of scrubby 
brush borderin’ it on each side. The horse herd of the In¬ 
jins—an’ it’s a big one—is pasturin’ along the nearer 
bank and pretty dost to the tepees.” 

Hurriedly Fitzpatrick called his men together. They 
left the trail they had been following and, single file, crept 
carefully back into the hills. Here a rocky little ravine 
was found, and here the men spent the few remaining 
hours of the night, and all of the next day, sleeping, eat¬ 
ing, and making plans for the coming night. 

“One thing is plumb certain,” cried one of the tired 


228 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

trappers. “Afore daylight tomorrow ev’ry man of us is 
goin’ to have the chanct to feel hossflesh under him 
again.” 

“An’ me,” grunted another, “I aim to have a couple 
more notches in my gunstock before I ride off.” 

Tom Fitzpatrick agreed that they had all done as 
much tramping as they ought to do for one season. “But,” 
he pointed out to the hotheads who wanted to fight the 
Indians first and get the horses afterward, “we got to 
think about our own scalps, too. Hosses—that’s what 
we’re here for. An’ beaver trappin’, that’s our main biz- 
ness. We don’t want no Injin war on our hands. No, 
boys, fergit all about revenge fer now.” 

When darkness came on the next night, the trappers 
crept from their hiding place and worked cautiously for¬ 
ward to the edge of the bluff overlooking the Indian 
camp. Dimly they could see through rising spirals of 
smoke the yellow glare of a score of campfires, and now 
and then a dark figure as it passed between them and one 
of the fires. Off to the left they could make out here and 
there a dull gleam from the waters of the creek. Those 
darker blotches near by must be the clumps of brush 
along the stream. Somewhere in there, if the horses were 
grazing on the same pastures as the night before, was 
the prize the mountain men were seeking. That was the 
first thing to make sure of—that and whether the In¬ 
dians were setting a night guard on the herd. Fitzpat¬ 
rick sent his two scouts out to make sure. They were to 
report in two hours. There was nothing for the others 
to do but to curl up in the sage bush and watch and wait. 

At the end of two long, tense hours, the scouts re¬ 
turned. Yes, a good herd of horses, maybe a hundred in 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


229 


all, was grazing near the creek in an open space in the 
scrubby timber. This spot was not more than three hun¬ 
dred yards from the nearest tepee. There were some In¬ 
dian dogs, of course—no Indian camp was complete with¬ 
out them. But as good luck would have it, the easiest 
way to get to the horses was also down-wind from the 
camp, and so probably those dogs wouldn’t be able to get 
a whiff of the trappers. As near as the scouts could tell, 
there were no Indians with the herd, and none prowl¬ 
ing about elsewhere. The nearness of the good grass to 
the village caused the Indians to assume, no doubt, that 
a night guard was unnecessary. Still, you couldn’t be too 
sure. Almost certainly a few horses, good ones, were 
picketed among the tepees, in instant readiness for their 
masters, should some emergency come up in the night. 

“All right, now, boys,” whispered Fitzpatrick, “let’s 
see if we’ve got this all straight. We’re to follow Joe an’ 
Milt around here to the west till we hit the crick. Then 
they’ll guide us up along the crick till we’re close to this 
clearin’ where the hosses is. Then Joe an’ Milt’ll help 
us git spread out in a circle around that place. If there is 
a guard out in the brush, an’ he gits a chance to let one 
yell out of him—well, you know what that’ll mean. Have 
your knives handy. If you’re nearest, see to it the var¬ 
mint don’t git that one chance. Sling your guns over your 
shoulders, now, with them buckskin straps I had you 
bring along. That’s what they’re for. There’ll be no 
shootin’—leastways not till every man is astride a hoss. 
Right now you want both hands free. You’ll need ’em. 
Joe, what signals have you an’ Milt agreed on?” 

“When we git you men spread out around that clearin’, 
Milt will give a low whistle to show his crowd is ready. 


230 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

When we’re all set at t’other side, I’ll answer with one 
hoot like a prairie owl. I reckon I kin do that as good as 
ary Injin,” answered Joe. 

So there under the low-hanging prairie stars the moun¬ 
tain men crept away on the heels of their guides toward 
the night pasture of the horses. After a time Milt and 
Joe stopped and waited for the men to gather about them. 
“Right here to the left of us is the crick,” whispered 
Milt. “This strip o’ brush here is about a hundred yards 
acrost. The herd is feedin’ jest beyond.” 

“When we’ve crawled about half ways through this 
brush,” Joe went on, “I’ll work off around to the right. 
Milt’ll turn left. The first six of you will keep along after 
me, the others after Milt. We’ll spread you out around 
that clearin’, sort of. Then wait for the whistle an’ the 
owl hoot.” 

“Slow an’ steady is the word, boys,” whispered Tom 
Fitzpatrick. “When we hear the signals we’ll all close 
in on the herd. Easy-like at first. I’ll give a yell when to 
charge ’em.” 

The fifteen night raiders crept away. It would have 
taken keen ears to hear even the slightest sound of their 
cat-like approach toward the horses. Five minutes 
passed; then five more. The trappers at last lay in a broad 
circle along the inner fringe of the brushy area, facing 
the opening where the horses grazed. So far none of the 
animals had scented the approach of their stalkers; the 
Indian camp over beyond was silent. 

From one side of the clearing sounded a low, clear 
whistle. It was answered almost at once by the odd night 
cry of the prairie owl. At once every man rose from where 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


231 


he had been crouching in the gloom of the scrub growth 
and slipped toward the grazing horses, only dimly visi¬ 
ble in the darkness. Up went the head of a pony, startled 
by a shadowy form creeping toward him. Then another 
and another head went up, as the half-wild animals 
ceased cropping the bunch grass and began to gaze nerv¬ 
ously toward the dark forms working in upon them from 
all sides. There was a snort from one side of the clear¬ 
ing, where the light breeze brought to the horses at that 
point their first man-smell. At once these trotted in to¬ 
ward the center of the open space. In another minute the 
entire herd was milling slowly about, only waiting a 
leader to take them in a wild plunge through the closing 
circle of men. 

“Now!” yelled Fitzpatrick. 

The fifteen trappers, dropping their stealthy approach, 
sprang forward. It was now or never. In a moment those 
massed ponies would break away, make room for them¬ 
selves, and be off at a mad gallop. Just for this instant 
they scarcely had room to do more than back away among 
their fellows, or rear up and strike out with their fore 
hoofs. In darted the mountain men. The man who missed 
his chance to twine his fingers in a shaggy mane and pull 
himself up astride a horse would, in five minutes more, go 
down under the war clubs of the roused and vengeful In¬ 
dians, who were already darting from under the flaps of 
their tepees and yelling excitedly. The thought of being 
left alone and afoot to face Indian vengeance nerved 
every man to the utmost. Sooner than it takes to tell this, 
every man was astride a rearing, frightened animal. 

The bluff on one side, the creek on the other, and the 


232 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

density of the growth upstream left but one natural road 
of flight open to the unridden horses. This lay directly 
through the village. And this was the road the stamped¬ 
ing horses took. Tom Fitzpatrick had not the slightest 
idea of riding ofif, satisfied, with fifteen horses, even if 
those fifteen could have been steered away from the di¬ 
rection of the tepees—a doubtful and time-wasting effort. 
Every man well understood that the entire horse herd 
must be stampeded and driven for miles away from that 
Indian camp. Otherwise the trappers would find them¬ 
selves, within twenty minutes, engaged in a running fight 
with half a hundred angry Indians. Perhaps the shortest 
way was the best. With wild whoops the men drove their 
mounts into the frightened herd, rounded up laggards, 
and sent the compact mass, riderless and ridden, straight 
in among the tepees. Dogs barked, squaws screamed, 
warriors yelled. These last tried a few quick shots at 
phantom-like targets dancing past them in the gloom. 
In less time than it takes to set this down, the dazed In¬ 
dians were gazing at empty darkness and listening to 
the thunder of hoofs dying away to the south. 

An hour later, fifteen exultant trappers were jogging 
along behind a band of tired horses. Those they rode 
were white with sweat. So far the pace had been a mad 
one, and miles and miles lay between the white men and 
the red encampment. The trappers felt that they could 
afford to slacken their pace a little. 

“Say, boys,” laughed one trapper, “ain't that a hornet's 
nest back there on that crick? Maddest Injins west of the 
Missouri!'' 

“Never got astride o' hossflesh so spry in my life,” 


THE NIGHT RAIDERS 


233 


chuckled another. “I could’ve rid a catamount out o’ that 
valley, an’ no mistake.” 

“Guess these In jins will learn not to try any tricks on 
us trappers,” boasted a third. 

“Tom,” asked Milt Sublette, “how many horses do you 
reckon we got up ahead of us here ?” 

“Well,” replied the leader, “not as many as we drove 
through that In jin camp. Don’t think we lost many the 
first few miles. They hung right in a bunch, we chased 
’em so fast. That’s what I wanted, so’s to leave most of 
them mad Injins afoot for a few hours, anyways. Since 
we slowed up I reckon quite a few has dropped out. We 
don’t want only about so many, anyways. Daylight’s 
cornin’, so pretty quick we can count noses.” 

The result of the count, an hour later, showed the 
mountain men that they now “owned” more than twice 
as many horses as they had had when first they dropped 
into the valley of the Green. The trappers now proceeded 
to cut out from the herd their twenty-five horses. Then 
they added to these twenty of the best of the Indian stock. 
This was their pay for all the trouble they had taken. 
“Spoils o’ war,” Tom put it. All others were turned back 
toward the camp of their owners. 

A week later Tom Fitzpatrick and his men were push¬ 
ing eastward toward South Pass to rejoin the other Ash¬ 
ley men. The pack horses were well loaded with the first 
bales of beaver skins ever to be started for the St. Louis 
market from beyond the Rocky Mountains. 

Questions on the Story 

1. How did Tom Fitzpatrick and his men find their way through 
South Pass? 


234 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


2. Tell how they built their “cache” for the bales of beaver 
skins. 

3. How did the trappers recover their stolen horses ? 


Things to Think About 


1. What seem to you to be the best traits shown by these 
western trappers? 

2. Why is it that we hear so little about cabins or tents in these 
western stories? 

3. What type of dwellings did the western Indians live in? 
Why were the buffalo herds so important to these Indians ? 

4. In your opinion, which took the greater amount of courage: 
to be a trapper in the western country, or one in the forested lands 
about the Great Lakes ? 


Things to Do 


1. Draw a map of Wyoming and Montana. Put on the map only 
the things that would have been of interest to the trappers and 
traders, such as mountains, mountain passes, rivers, Indian tribes, 
and good places for beavers. Why not make a picture map of it, 
drawing in tepees to represent the location of Indian tribes, and 
so on? 

2. The Oregon Trail ran through South Pass. See what you can 
learn about this famous old wagon road to Oregon. 




WHITEHEAD TOM 

/ “T“ S HIS is another story about Tom Fitzpatrick, trapper 
of the western mountains. Why, you ask, was he 
not called Whitehead Tom, sometimes, at least, in the 
earlier story? As a matter of fact, he had not at that time 
earned the new name that was to stick to him in later 
years. This story tells how Tom Fitzpatrick earned the 
nickname of “Whitehead Tom.” 

You remember that Tom and his men had had good 
luck with the beaver, and with horses, too, over on the 
Pacific side of the grim old Rockies. We shall take them 
up in this story where we left them in the last one— 
jingling along eastward with their pack train toward 
South Pass, hurrying to rejoin the main body of Ash¬ 
ley's men. Quite pleased with themselves they were, both 
as explorers and as horse hunters, and content with the 
heavy packs of beaver pelts jouncing and swaying on the 
backs of the long line of pack horses. 

How could our fifteen trappers ever hope to find their 
friends in a vast wild country of mountains, of hot, dusty 
plains, and of deep, swift rivers? 

235 








236 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

St. Louis was a long way off. It would have been sense¬ 
less for all the trappers to make the long journey there 
and back each season. That would have left them little 
time for trapping. So General Ashley arranged to have 
some of his men take the bales of fur down to market each 
summer. A part of the long trip was made by packtrain. 
The men rode and camped and rode again, day after day, 
keeping a close eye on the horses carrying those precious 
bales of furs. Far down along the Platte River they went 
until at last the Missouri was reached. Here the fur was 
placed on boats, and the strong current soon bore the 
cargo of peltries to the docks at St. Louis. 

Before the trip to market began, those who went and 
those who stayed behind agreed on a meeting place for 
the following spring. To this place came the trappers 
from up and down the mountain streams where they had 
spent the cold season trapping. To it came the pack train, 
up along the Platte, up the Sweetwater, the horses bur¬ 
dened with fresh supplies for the trappers. The mountain 
men borrowed a word from the French trappers and 
traders for the place agreed upon. They called it the 
''rendezvous.” Fitzpatrick and his men were hurrying 
toward the 1826 rendezvous of the Ashley company. The 
place appointed was a mountain valley on the Wind 
River. 

"Hi-yi, there she is!” 

There came a day when Tom and his trappers sat on 
their ponies and gazed down into the green pocket in the 
hills where they were to meet their friends. They spurred 
forward at a jingling trot. Wheti they reached the floor 
of the valley the happy wanderers gave a wild whoop, 
fired their rifles into the air, and swept forward at a 


WHITEHEAD TOM 


237 


gallop. They were making sure their arrival would be 
noticed. 

Scores of trappers were already at the rendezvous. 
Campfires gleamed among the clumps of trees along 
Wind River. Crowds of laughing, yelling men pushed 
forward to watch Fitzpatrick's men come in. They 
crowded closer, stopped the rush of horses, and dragged 
the fifteen newcomers down among them. But these wel¬ 
coming mountain men were not Ashley's trappers. They 
were mostly bands of free trappers, who trapped as they 
pleased and sold when and how they could. Just across 
the river Tom and his men could see scores of tepees, 
for the friendly Indians came to the rendezvous, also, to 
trade their beaver skins to the white men. It was plain 
to see that the serious business of the rendezvous had 
not yet begun. Both white men and red were lolling about 
in the bright spring sunshine, with nothing in particular 
to do. A few were cooking at the fires, one small group was 
shooting at a mark, and there was much talk about a 
horse race that was to be held that afternoon. 

Fitzpatrick looked worried as he led his band on down 
the valley in search of the camp of the Ashley men. Soon 
they came to it, nestled in a grove of cottonwoods on a 
knoll above the river. Here they found Jed Smith, Hugh 
Glass, and most of the others waiting for them. 

“Hello, Tom!" 

“Howdy, Jed. When did you get in?" 

“Where's Jake? Haven’t seen him nowheres yet." 

“Jake? Didn’t you hear?" Then, low-voiced, “Wal, the 
Blackfeet they got poor Jake." 

“Where's Bill Sublette?" asked Fitzpatrick after the 
first greetings and handshakings were over. 


238 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

'That's what's botherin’ us, Tom," someone answered. 
"Oughter been here long before this." 

"We'll lose a lot of trade if Sublette ain’t in here with 
that pack train from St. Louey pretty quick, that’s sure," 
said the quiet-mannered Jed Smith. "Ashley is staying 
home this trip, just as he told us last summer. Wish he 
was here to take hold of things. These Injins and free 
trappers will wander off, or swap their furs to this small 
tradin' outfit that's already here." 

"Them Injins is anxious to be off to their summer 
huntin’ grounds right now," put in stocky, grizzled old 
Hugh Glass. 

"This is bad, boys. Something's got to be done," ex¬ 
claimed Fitzpatrick. 

All afternoon and evening the Ashley trappers sat 
about and ate and smoked and told stories of their ad¬ 
ventures since the rendezvous of the previous year. Tom 
said little. Night came on with still no sign of the miss¬ 
ing pack train. 

In the morning, as the other men were rolling lazily 
out of their blankets, with the idea of breakfast upper¬ 
most in their minds, Tom surprised them by coming up 
fully dressed, rifle under his arm, and leading his best 
horse, saddled and bridled and carrying a small but com¬ 
plete trail outfit. 

"I can’t stand this, boys," he said. "I got to take the 
trail east an' see what’s happened to delay Sublette this 
way. No," he waved back the volunteers who would have 
gone with him, "this is a one-man job. You boys stay 
here an' hold back the tradin' till our outfit gits here." 
With that he swung into the saddle and rode away out 
of the valley to the east. 

In five days' time Tom saw a dust cloud up ahead, and 


WHITEHEAD TOM 


239 


a few minutes later he and William Sublette were shak¬ 
ing hands beside the long dusty pack train and its escort. 
Sublette was explaining how the high water had delayed 
him down along the Platte River. 

The two leaders agreed that Tom should hurry back to 
Wind River with the news that the great pack train was 
almost in, while Sublette whipped up his jaded outfit into 
a little better speed. 

“One thing more, Tom/’ said the pack-train boss. 
“We’ve seen signs of Blackfoot war parties two or three 
times lately. Them varmints seem to be workin’ pretty 
far south this year. Grossed a fresh trail of a big band 
of ’em only yesterday mornin’. You see any signs your¬ 
self, Tom?” 

“Yes, I admit I did. But I reckon I can slip past ’em 
same as I did gettin’ out here.” 

“Tom, you got plenty nerve, all right; but they’s no 
use in takin’ unnecessary chances. I can’t spare any men, 
leastways not enough to do you any good. But here’s 
what I want you to do: I got two fresh hosses here, an’ 
they’re both fast, one especial. You pack your blanket 
an’ the rest of your outfit on this fast one. We’ll saddle 
an’ bridle him, too. Then you lead him an’ ride t’other 
one. If them Blackfoot devils give you a chase, slip 
aboard the fresh nag an’ you can prob’ly outrun ’em.” 

So Tom Fitzpatrick started back toward the rendez¬ 
vous with two horses. Two days passed without a sign 
of Indians anywhere. Then, about mid-afternoon of the 
third day, Tom’s keen eyes saw a little feather of dust 
rolling up well ahead and off to the right of the trail. He 
halted and waited. Maybe a herd of buffalo, although 
this wasn’t buffalo country this time of year. “Even if 
it’s Injins,” thought Tom, “maybe they haven’t sighted 


240 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


me and are ridin’ the other way.” But no, that rising 
spiral of dust was growing, getting nearer. A minute 
more and hard-riding figures topped a low divide and 



came swooping down toward him. They had seen him, or 
at least their lookout had. 

Tom Fitzpatrick slipped to the ground, slapped his late 













WHITEHEAD TOM 


241 


mount’s flank, and sent the surprised horse up the trail. 
Then he bounded into the saddle of his fresh horse, 
pulled him sharply to the left, and raced for the rough 
country a mile or so away. Tom did not even consider his 
back trail as a possible road of escape. Those wily braves, 
he knew only too well, had attended to that before they 
showed themselves ahead. The race was exciting but 
short. The Blackfeet knew that the white man was riding 
a fresh horse. They knew, almost to a mile, how far they 
could lash their own tired ponies forward. They were also 
aware that up ahead was a country where a good fresh 
horse could keep his feet over the boulder-strewn waste 
and yet leave no trail. Halfway to the foothills the In¬ 
dians pulled up, circled back to the war chief for fresh 
orders, and then trotted away out of sight over the ridge 
where Tom had first sighted them. 

“Well, Bill Sublette, guess mebbe one Tom Fitzpat¬ 
rick owes his life to you right now,” thought Tom. “Your 
two-hoss idea wasn’t so bad.” 

The mountain man rode on deeper and deeper into the 
wild, rough country. When he was sure that the sharpest- 
eyed Blackfoot tracker in that whole bloodthirsty race 
could never pick up his trail, he dismounted in a little 
glade where there was water and where the bunch grass 
of last season’s growth offered pasturage for his horse. 
Here he picketed the animal, spread his blanket, got out 
his supply of dried meat and ate, lighted his pipe, and set¬ 
tled down to pass the time as best he might. He knew 
well enough that those redskins had not given up the idea 
of having his scalp. It was unsafe to try to rejoin the 
pack train or to try to circle round toward the Wind 
River encampment. “I’ll just wait right here till them 


242 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Blackfeet get tired waitin’ for me. A white man beats 
an In jin in the long run because he’s got more patience.” 
So Tom lay in his safe retreat for three days and three 
nights, and never sight or sound of his enemies did he 
have. On the fourth day he mounted and rode slowly and 
cautiously back to the trail. Here it was clear that the 
pack train had passed at least twenty-four hours before. 
Tom spurred up his horse to overtake it. 

A half hour’s ride brought the trapper to a point on 
the trail where the prairie at the left narrowed, and the 
gashed, boulder-cluttered foothill area crowded close to 
the side of the trail. 

Swish! Swish! A three-foot arrow flashed past his 
shoulder, while a second glanced off his saddle pommel. 
There was a wild whoop and the half-naked Blackfoot 
braves came charging at him, lashing their ponies or 
fitting fresh arrows to their bowstrings. Tom jerked his 
horse off the trail and again headed for the sheltering 
rocks. Just as he reached them his horse went down. Up 
and away went the trapper, fierce yells behind him, arrows 
whistling past. In among the rocks he fled, expecting 
every jump to be his last. The going became rougher and 
rougher. All at once Tom realized that no horse could 
travel here; that his pursuers now had no advantage over 
him except that of numbers. They would pursue him on 
foot, probably; but this game of hide-and-seek, Tom 
knew, was little to their liking. In open country the game 
would have been over long before this. On panted the 
mountain man. 

At last, exhausted, Tom half slipped and half fell into 
a deep narrow gash in the rocks. He could not rise. He 
had not seen or heard anything of the pursuit for sev- 


WHITEHEAD TOM 


243 


eral minutes. Maybe they had lost his trail among the 
rocks. Well, he still had his rifle, and there was one good 
charge in it for the first red varmint who peeked down 
into that crack. Tom lay and waited. After a while it 
grew dark, and the stiff, bruised man scratched his way 
up out of his narrow shelter and away into the thicker 
gloom of some overhanging rocks. Here he lay down and 
got some rest and sleep. 

Daylight came at last, and the hunted mountain man 
took stock of his situation. To begin with, he had just 
one round of ammunition. What a fool he had been to 
ease his bullet pouch and his powder horn off his shoul¬ 
ders and onto his saddle pommel. This had happened not 
twenty minutes before the attack of the Indians. He had 
no food, no blanket. His clothing and moccasins were 
already torn and tattered from the wild scramble among 
the rocks. More likely than not, the Blackfeet were wait¬ 
ing for him to show himself in the open. The wily rascals 
would know, after they came up to Tom’s dead or 
wounded horse, the kind of plight the white man was in. 
How far was it to the Wind River rendezvous? Perhaps 
a hundred miles as a crow would set his course, thought 
Tom Fitzpatrick. How far would he be obliged to travel 
to get there? That depended on the “lay of the land,” 
the wanderings necessary to stave off starvation, and 
the plans of that Blackfoot war party. Tom well knew the 
heavy odds against him in his coming effort to rejoin 
his comrades. He squinted long at the glowing eastern 
sky to get his general bearings, fixed firmly in his brain 
the general direction he wished to travel, and began slow¬ 
ly and cautiously picking his way deeper into jumbled 
foothill country to the south. 


244 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

If the red marauders waited a second time out there 
on the trail for the cunning white man, that fact is not 
set down anywhere. The pack train, traveling hard, 
thudded down to the Wind River rendezvous a few days 
later. 

“Where's Tom?" was Sublette's first question. And 
“Where’s Tom?" was the question Jed Smith and the 
others shot back at the packers. 

“Well, boys," said the pack-train boss, as he looked 
around at his companions, “Tom met us, all right, an' 
started back with two horses. We knew he'd had trouble 
with the Indians—plenty of pony tracks across the trail, 
an’ up and down it for miles. When we got out of the 
tangle o' tracks we couldn’t pick up Tom's trail heading 
this way. We kept on hopin’ right up to now that he’d 
swung off the trail, given the Indians the slip, and landed 
here safe." 

“I figger it this way," said Jed Smith after a long si¬ 
lence; “Tom's a pretty wise old bird. The Injins run him 
off the trail, sure, but that don’t noways prove that he 
wasn't too slippery for even them Blackfeet. I more'n 
half expect we’ll see him showin' up here one o' these 
days." 

“Let's get the trade opened up here now," advised 
Sublette. “If Tom fails to come in we’ll send a party out 
to look for him." 

The traps, blankets, tea, powder, bullets, guns, calico, 
beads, knives, and other goods were spread out for all 
to see. The trade was good. A week passed, but Tom 
Fitzpatrick did not come. Then twenty Ashley men, well 
armed and led by Hugh Glass, took the back trail of the 
pack train to see what they could learn about the missing 


WHITEHEAD TOM 


245 


Tom. Six days later they were back. They reported that 
Blackfoot war ponies had all but wiped out the tracks 
made by the pack horses when they had traveled west¬ 
ward. The scouts had followed the tracks of galloping 
ponies where they cut across the trail to the south, and 
there, on the edge of a rock slope, they had found the 
skeleton of a horse not yet picked quite clean by the coy¬ 
otes. Nothing unusual about that, except that one of the 
returning scouts, who had been one of Sublette's pack¬ 
ers, was able, from a few pieces of horsehide he picked 
up, to identify the horse as one of those Sublette had lent 
to Tom Fitzpatrick. 

Day after day the trade went on. At first, all the beaver 
pelts of the Ashley men were checked in, their wants for 
the coming year supplied, and their credits with the com¬ 
pany set down in a book. Then the free trappers brought 
up their peltries and the trading went on. Last of all came 
the Indians—Crows, Shoshones, Cheyennes—to swap 
whatever furs they had gathered during the year. They 
had never done much trapping, as the buffalo herds sup¬ 
plied them with almost everything they needed. Still, 
those shiny knives and the kettles and the beads and the 
cheap guns brought by the traders—it was worth while 
to catch beavers if in that way one might gain possession 
of some of the wares brought by the palefaces. 

At last the business at the rendezvous was completed. 
There followed a week of celebration in which the entire 
camp took part: dances, races, shooting matches. Then 
it was time for the pack train to take the eastward trail 
for distant St. Louis with the fur. Sublette and his help¬ 
ers began bundling the furs into packs of a size and shape 
that would allow two to fit snugly on each pack horse's 


246 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

back, there to be bound securely in place by means of 
long ropes. It was time, too, for the trappers to get their 
outfits together and to start for the beaver country they 
had selected for the year’s trapping. 

“Poor old Tom—Tom Fitzpatrick! The Blackfeet got 
him, of course. Ashley’s lost one of his best men, and no 
mistake.” That thought came often to the men camped 
in the Wind River rendezvous that summer of 1826. 
More than one mountain man, when that thought came, 
filed away in his brain somewhere the fixed idea that 
“them red varmints” should be made to pay dearly, some 
day when it came handy to attend to it, for the growing 
list of trappers whose scalps had gone to dangle from 
stakes set in the ground before Blackfoot wigwams. 

Then, one late summer day, just as the great rendez¬ 
vous was breaking up, a ragged scarecrow staggered in 
among the camps of the trappers there on Wind River. 
A ragged, gaunt, haggard figure it was, that no man rec¬ 
ognized. No wonder! For, in addition to the rags and 
gauntness, the scarecrow’s hair was as white as snow. But 
it was Tom Fitzpatrick himself. 

Where had he been all those long months ? What had 
happened? If Tom ever told the whole story to his 
friends, they must have locked it up inside them; it was 
one of the tales of western adventure that was never told 
around the campfires. You and I must go without it. 

“Whitehead Tom” became the new name of the moun¬ 
tain man. As Whitehead he trapped on until the great 
days of the beaver-trapping mountain men were over. 
Under the new name Tom Fitzpatrick went on to win a 
wider fame as a guide to John C. Fremont, “the Path¬ 
finder.” In time the grim, silent land he loved was opened 


WHITEHEAD TOM 


247 


for the miners, the cattlemen, the farmers. Little did 
these realize the debt they owed, in this laying bare of 
the secrets of the great West, to Whitehead Tom. 

Questions on the Story 

1. What plan did Ashley’s men follow in collecting the furs 
and getting them to St. Louis? 

2. What was the “rendezvous” ? 

3. How did Tom Fitzpatrick come to have his adventure with 
the Blackfoot war party, and how did he manage to escape? 

4. Why was Fitzpatrick given the nickname of “Whitehead”? 

Things to Think About 

1. Fur-trade terms, such as cache and rendezvous, are from the 
French tongue. Is that to be expected? 

2. Many of the trapping mountain men never went back to 
civilization. What did the plans of Ashley have to do with this? 

3. Do you consider beaver trapping an occupation that would 
last very long in the West? 

Things to Do 

1. Point out on a map the route the peltries took in going from 
western Wyoming to St. Louis. 

2. How long would it take a wagon, traveling twelve miles a 
day, to go from St. Louis to South Pass? A man on horseback, 
averaging thirty miles a day ? An automobile today ? An airplane ? 
Try making a bar graph to bring out these contrasts in methods of 
travel. 

3. Be ready to point out on a map all of the new place names 
mentioned in this story. 




THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


HE farther north you go, the finer and silkier the 



-■* coats of the fur-bearing animals become. That is be¬ 
cause the colder weather, the snow and ice, and the long 
winters make thick, deep coats of fur so necessary. Going 
higher arid higher up a mountain side brings the same 
results to the backs of the fur bearers. All this helps to 
explain the bigness of the fur empire of the Great West. 
It was by no means confined to the northern areas, such 
as Canada, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming. Because of 
the high, cold mountain lands that reach southward to 
the Mexican border and beyond, the haunts of the beaver 
tribe, in particular, reached well down across all of our 
early Southwest. 

This story has to do with the fur trade and the trap¬ 
ping in New Mexico and the wild lands off beyond the 
glinting waters of the upper Rio Grande. The hero of the 
story is today regarded as one of the greatest of the pio¬ 
neers of the old Southwest. 

“What a dull, stupid place a saddler’s shop is!” thought 
sandy-haired, freckle-faced young Christopher, as he 
stood with his back to a litter of scraps of leather and 
half-finished saddles and bridles in the musty little room, 
and gazed out across the coffee-colored waters of the 


248 




THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 249 

Missouri one early spring morning. “I don’t see why ma 
ever apprenticed me to a saddler.” 

“Kit” lived in Franklin, Missouri, a sprawling little 
western town. But to a boy like Kit it was the most inter¬ 
esting place in the world, not to stay in but to start out 
from. Right there at Franklin a main trail branched into 
two trails that led off, one southwest and one northwest, 
to the grand country of the buffaloes and the Indians, 
with mile upon mile of open prairie, then the high, breezy 
country of the bunch grass and the sage, and far off be¬ 
yond that, the gleaming mountains and the cactus and 
the desert. 

Now Kit knew a lot about that land of high adven¬ 
ture out beyond the farthest edge of things. Hadn’t he 
talked with those shaggy trappers only yesterday, when 
they came ashore from their flat-bottomed boat to buy 
a few more pack horses? Hadn’t they told him about 
Powder River, and the Big Horns, and South Pass and 
Jackson’s Hole, away out there among the mountains? 
Then, too, there were the wagon trains which here angled 
off toward the southwest, headed for the famous old town 
of Santa Fe. More than once had the apprenticed Kit 
deserted his bench and slipped away to the west edge of 
town just to watch the great creaking wagons go by in 
their dust. 

Now there was the life for you. Why should a boy 
spend his days sweeping and picking up around a dirty 
little shop and learning to stitch leather with a waxed- 
end, always under the eye of a surly, grumbling fellow 
like Dave Workman, when he could just as well be out 
there where there were buffaloes to shoot and beavers 
to trap and Indians to fight? 


250 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Presently that saddle shop was minus one apprentice. 
Far down along the trail that winds toward Santa Fe 
go two lines of white-topped wagons. Whips crack over 
the backs of the eight-mule teams that strain and tug 
at each wagon. The green stretches of the Osage country 
have been left behind. The land grows dry and flinty. 
Every turn of the wagon wheels takes the great wagon 
train deeper into a region of desolation. Outriders on 
each side of the double line are keeping sharp eyes 
“peeled” for lurking Pawnee or rascally Comanche. A 
cloud of dust rolls upward, to be carried off by the sing¬ 
ing winds. 

Back of the last wagons comes a band of loose horses 
and mul'es, the “cavvy.” Back of the last loose, ambling, 
stubborn mule comes still another long-eared brother of 
his; and on the back of this one is perched a runty, freck¬ 
led boy who somehow looks familiar. It is Kit, the run¬ 
away apprentice, whose job it is to keep the “cavvy” 
close behind the tail of the last wagon. Hard, dusty work 
—but at least Kit’s off on his road of adventure, so what 
else matters ? 

It is said that in the first Pawnee scare Kit, excited 
and half scared to death, no doubt, shot his mule instead 
of a Pawnee. It is said, too, that the “cavvy” boy, cool 
as could be, sawed off the arm of a wounded man to keep 
him from dying of blood poisoning. But “it is said” isn’t 
very good proof of young Kit’s exploits on his first trip 
to Santa Fe. We may be pretty sure, though, that the 
nights around the campfires, with the wagons drawn 
up close, end to end, in a big circle, and the herd of 
mules and horses feeding under the eye of the night 
guard, made Kit forget the trials of the day, and thrilled 
the boy with a sense of high adventure. 


THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


251 


Now buffalo began to appear, and more than once the 
war bonnets of the Pawnees could be seen dancing along 
the crest of some distant ridge. On creaked the wagons, 
sometimes twenty, sometimes fifteen miles a day. Pawnee 
Rock was passed, and after that old trailers’ landmark 
had dropped away behind, the Rabbit’s Ears, another 
high-jutting rock, appeared ahead. One morning the bar¬ 
rels were unlashed, filled with water at a shallow little 
river, and lashed again to the wagons. Then the train 
plowed on across the valley of the Cimarron—four days’ 
hard going before the next water hole could be reached. 
One day hail fell, the big hailstones almost hammering 
the entire wagon train into a wild stampede. Two days 
later a tornado twisted its destroying way across the trail 
ahead of the travelers. 

Hot, tired, red-eyed from the dust clouds, Kit rode at 
the tail of his “cavvy.” At last, one afternoon, he heard a 
shout up ahead: “There she is! Santy Fe!” and the run¬ 
away, at last topping a rise, looked down into a green 
plain sloping away to the west. A gray blur against the 
green marked the end of the trail, Santa Fe. 

Kit had done his boy’s job like a man; they all said 
that. He felt proud of himself as he drove his part of the 
outfit through the streets of the quaint old town, with 
Indians and swarthy-looking whites looking on and 
shouting excitedly. 

Kit was paid off, along with the others. The owners 
of the wagon train went at the slow work of exchanging 
the freightage of the wagons for the Mexicans’ wool and 
fur and silver. The teamsters and most of the guards 
and hunters scattered about the town to see what fun 
they could find. Kit began to feel small and out-of-place, 
and maybe a little bit homesick. But go back to Franklin 


252 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

and that saddle-shop? Not much! To be sure, he did go 
part way back, not once but several times, and always 
with the “cavvy.” He had to do it or go without any 
kind of job. But always, before the east-bound wagon 
train groaned down the last stretch of trail into Frank¬ 
lin, Kit managed to transfer his services to a west-bound 
outfit. Never again did Dave Workman set eyes on his 
former apprentice. 

The small and childish-looking Kit had a hard time of 
it, at first, in his new surroundings. He was steady and 
true; he could do many useful things, and do them well. 
His marksmanship with his old rifle was good. But after 
all, he was only a boy, and a runt of a boy at that. Trap¬ 
per? Trail blazer? Indian fighter? Scout? Nobody could 
see the least sign of any of them in the sandy-haired 
little fellow plodding along in the dust of the caravans. 
Nevertheless, in a few short years the undersized “cav¬ 
vy” boy would show the whole Southwest that he was all 
of these, and near the top of the list in each class. A cool, 
bold leader on the danger trail, a quick, hard fighter when 
fighting was needed, a tough, wiry, enduring sort of man 
—that was Kit a few years later. Let us see, now, how he 
got his chance to show the stuff that was in him. 

“Yes, sir, I aim to lead a band o’ trappers clear out 
to the Gila an’ the Colorado.” It was Ewing Young 
speaking. “That’s fresh beaver country out there. The 
Mexicans are too lazy to trap. You’re nineteen now, Kit? 
Pretty young an’ raw fer this bizness, but folks say you 
ride good an’ shoot straight. Mebbe you got nerve, too. 
Time’ll tell. Anyways, if you want to join my bunch o’ 
rough old mountain goats an’ go along, all right.” 

At last Kit’s dream was beginning to come true. In al- 


THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


253 


most no time at all Kit had “jined up” with the expedi¬ 
tion of Ewing Young and was scurrying about, getting 
his part of the outfit ready. 

Out of Santa Fe clattered the trappers one April morn¬ 
ing, forty of them, all well mounted and with a string 
of pack horses carrying plenty of jerked buffalo meat, 
blankets, traps, and ammunition. Down across the corner 
of New Mexico went Young’s fur brigade, fighting the 
Apaches out of the way and taking a few beavers as they 
went. Then the trapping grew better and the party set¬ 
tled down to work carefully along the sparkling streams 
that headed in the nearby jumble of mountains. Finally 
—they were well over into Arizona by now—the beaver 
packs grew so heavy that Young decided to send 4 twenty 
of his men back with the catch to Santa Fe. Kit was not 
turned back, a fact that shows the standing he had al¬ 
ready gained with his leader. 

On pushed Young and Kit and eighteen other trap¬ 
pers, across a region no white American had seen before 
that time. Day after day they trailed on through burning 
desert sands and across high plateaus where at night 
their roaring campfires could scarcely beat back the icy 
cold. At times they wandered on, half dead from thirst, 
desert mirages tantalizing them with the promise of 
water that was never made good. At last there came an 
evening when the weary trappers stood looking down 
into a weird, rainbow-hued chasm, the Grand Canyon of 
the Colorado. Near the canyon they rested, having found 
pasturage for the horses and fresh venison for them- 


“Well, Kit, from now on we got to keep our eyes 


254 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

peeled an’ our ears to the ground. We’re back in Apache- 
land again.” 

Tall, fierce-looking Ewing Young turned in his sad¬ 
dle and grinned at the lithe, alert figure riding beside him. 
“Guess I don’t need to say that to you, Kit. If I did, I 
shore wouldn’t gone an’ made you my lieutenant, would 
I?” 

The fur brigade was moving eastward. Almost a year 
and a half had rolled by since the adventurers had shaken 
the dust of Santa Fe from their feet. Behind Young and 
Kit clattered the eighteen hardy trappers, driving along 
in their midst fully forty heavily-burdened pack horses. 

“Well, Captain,” responded Kit, “it was a great turn 
o’ luck'for me when you let me come with you. If I’ve 
done my part it’s because I jest had to show you I ap¬ 
preciated the chance you shoved in front of a no-account 
boy.” 

Young laughed. “You talk, Kit, like you was an old 
graybeard now. Almost twenty-one, ain’t ye?” Then he 
went on: “For one, I’m mighty glad we’re safe out o’ 
Californy. Them Mexicans don’t love us much, that’s a 
fact. Lucky for us they was afeard o’ these long rifles of 
ours.” 

Kit smiled that slow smile of his as he recalled the 
exciting days the party had just had beyond the Sierras. 
“Expect we did look pretty wild an’ ornery-like to the 
folks out there. Good thing they was a little bit gun-shy, or 
we’d be layin’ in that dirty jail o’ theirs yet.” After a 
moment Kit went on soberly: “Grand country out there, 
though. Best I ever seen. Americans would make a great 
state out o’ Californy if they ever got a chance.” 1 


1 Kit himself played a heroic part when the chance came. 



THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


255 


The Apaches were a hard-riding, hard-fighting race 
of red men. Almost naked, their faces and bodies painted 
hideously, they swept down from their secret hiding 
places in the southern mountains, carrying pillage and 
death to their foes. They were the declared enemies of 
white men and were among the last of the tribesmen to 
come to terms with the palefaces. In the times we speak of, 
they were still in the bow-and-arrow stage of warfare. 
They had a great respect for those long rifles of the 
trappers. It was this fact, probably, that made it pos¬ 
sible for Young’s trappers to break through the tribal 
lands at all. As it was, trouble gathered about the white 
men the minute they set foot in Apache-land. Down in 
southern Arizona, on the banks of a little branch of the 
Salt River, they came close to complete disaster. 

At the time this calamity threatened, the adventurers 
had bedded down for the night where good water could 
be had from the creek and fair pasturage was at hand for 
the horses. The packs of furs had been placed in a circle 
around the cooking-fire. All that fur was worth too much 
to be left unwatched. Besides, if there were a night at¬ 
tack, the packs would not make a bad fort. 

After supper two night guards went out into the dark¬ 
ness to take their turns watching the grazing horses. 
Every horse was hobbled, 1 of course, but in the dark 
strange things might happen. Those horses were just as 
valuable as the fur; for without horses there could be no 
fur for the Santa Fe market, and probably no returning 
trappers, either. The other men rolled up in their blankets 
and went to sleep. 

Nobody knew how or when it happened, and the two 


1 The feet tied so that the animal could not run freely. 



256 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

watchers swore solemnly that they had not shut an eye 
all night. But when daylight came every horse had van¬ 
ished. A broad trail led off to the east. 

“A regular Apache trick!” cried Ewing Young. “They 
can almost steal a horse right out from under a man 
without his knowin’ it. If we was anywheres but in 
Apache territory I’d say you two fellers had slept like 
dead men all night. As it is, I believe you. Anyway, I 
know twenty trappers that’s in a bad fix.” 

After a hurried breakfast, Young, Kit, and most of the 
men took the trail in pursuit of the Indians and horses. 
Three men remained behind to guard the camp. A sur¬ 
prising thing happened. The pursuit had lasted only half 
an hour when the trappers, topping a little rise, saw a 
dust cloud up ahead. They watched it grow bigger, and 
soon galloping horses could be seen coming, unridden, 
straight for them. Kit dropped behind the rocks, and the 
others followed his example. Whispering together, the 
men decided to lie low until the horses had passed, and 
then, if Indians were behind them, to scatter the red ras¬ 
cals with a volley. Sure enough, as the racing horses 
came on, mounted Apaches, perhaps a score of them, 
could be seen lashing their ponies up alongside the flying 
herd. What had happened? 

“I figure it this way,” whispered Kit. “The Injins that 
stole our herd ran into a stronger band, mebbe from some 
other tribe. In tryin’ to swing our horses off the trail 
they lost control of ’em. Our bunch started back here. 
Now the thieves is’ workin’ to haze ’em off the back trail 
and get ’em rounded up again.” 

In another minute the horse herd thundered past, some 
of the trappers being able to recognize their own mounts 


THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


257 


through the dust clouds. Seconds later the bareback 
Apache riders swept into range. 

“Give ’em a round, boys!” yelled Young. The long 
rifles roared. Like lightning the Apaches’ ponies veered 
off and swung right or left in great arcs, every rider out 
of sight behind the body of his horse, with only a heel 
and an elbow showing. Some of the trappers had shot to 
kill, and two ponies went down. Instantly two riders 
swerved from the receding line, swept past the dis¬ 
mounted warriors, and, in a maneuver faster than the 
eyes of the trappers could follow, picked up the unlucky 
fellows and swept away out of range with them. Never 
before had Kit seen riding like this. The surprised In¬ 
dians cantered away out of sight. 

“Now, boys, back to camp,” said Ewing Young. 
“We’re still afoot, remember. We’d better get our live 
stock rounded up before our friends bring on the rest of 
the tribe an’ pen us up right here.” 

By nightfall the herd of saddle and pack horses had 
been collected. They were held close to the campfire that 
night. No one got much sleep. At daylight the party was 
off for a hard day on the trail. 

“We’d best put plenty of distance between us an’ that 
special band of Apaches,” remarked Kit. 

“Yes, them Injins would like a little revenge for the 
su’prise we gave ’em there in the rocks,” answered 
Young. “Some of you men was mighty careless, drop- 
pin’ them horses like you done. You hurt the pride of 
the whole Apache nation, an’ that’s a bad thing to do to 
any tribe. We got to be mighty careful.” 

During the next three days no Indians were seen. The 
horse herd, closely guarded, came safely through the 


258 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

hours of darkness. Young decided that the pack train 
could stand the added burden of a few more beaver pelts. 
The streams thereabouts showed specially strong “beaver 
sign.” Camp was made in a smooth open space near a 
good stream. 

Next morning Young sent out half of his men to pros¬ 
pect and to set traps. Four men guarded the pack horses 
in a grassy valley half a mile away. Young himself went 
back along the stream they had been following, accom¬ 
panied by one of his men. Kit was left in charge of camp 
with three men to help him guard it. 

The four men at the camp spent some time sorting 
and repacking some of the bales of fur. Then they idled 
about, waiting for the others to return. It was a quiet, 
bright day. There were no suspicious sights or sounds 
anywhere about. Kit felt lazy and content, sure that they 
were pretty well out of Apache country. 

Off to the §outh of the encampment there was a little 
gully which, from where Kit sat with his back to a bale 
of pelts, scarcely made a wrinkle in the level plain. Over 
in that direction he thought he began to hear faint, click¬ 
ing sounds. Once he was sure he saw a wisp of dust rise. 
Kit got to his feet, rifle at the ready, and started to walk 
in the direction of the gully. Just then more than fifty 
Apache warriors rode up out of the shallow ravine at 
half a dozen points and galloped down on the camp. 
They circled and surrounded it. The four trappers stood 
back to back, motionless, in among the beaver packs, their 
rifles ready. 

“You men keep your heads, now,” whispered Kit. 
“Don’t shoot an’ don’t move. Be ready to act an’ act 
quick when I say. Any slip an’ we’re goners.” 


THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


259 


By now the Indians had halted, sitting their war ponies 
in a circle around the camp. They had no weapons in 
sight. They began making signs that they were only on a 
friendly visit. Then they got off their horses and walked 
slowly in on the trappers, still grinning and making no 
show of bows and arrows or knives. It was a queer 
performance, and one hard for Kit to interpret. Was it 
the Apache plan to get close in and then rush the four 
men ? Or perhaps they were friendly for the moment, at 
least. 

By this time the well-nigh naked warriors had sidled 
up to within ten yards of the four whites. Kit noted the 
leaders of the Indians, well up in front. There were sev¬ 
eral, showing by their ornaments that they were im¬ 
portant citizens among the Apaches. 

“Now, boys, listen,” whispered Kit rapidly. “Tom, you 
see that big old fellow right in front of you; he’s your 
man. Joe, the one with the antelope horns. Ike, that little 
chief wearin’ all the paint. I’ve got my man picked,’ too. 
I’m goin’ to yell 'now’ in just a second. When I do, jump 
straight at your In jin and ram your gun hard up against 
his ribs. But don’t shoot. Ready—now!” 

On the instant each of the four Indian leaders felt the 
muzzle of one of those long rifles pressed firmly against 
his side. The friendly grins, which at the moment were 
being wiped off their faces by looks of craft and cruelty, 
flitted back into place again. The other warriors saw the 
quick action of the white men and knew that a false 
move now would send four of their best warriors to the 
“Happy Hunting Grounds.” For the next few seconds 
it seemed as if the entire group, white men and red, had 
been turned to stone. Then Kit spoke. 


260 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

“Now, you rascals, get out of here. Onto your horses 
and off with you. One false move and your four chiefs 
die. Get out now” 

The Indians could not understand English, but voice 
and gesture told them exactly what Kit meant. They 
walked to their ponies, mounted, and backed away. Then, 
as Kit still waved them back, they wheeled and rode off 
a hundred or more yards. Not until then did the gun 
muzzles cease to prod the ribs of the Apache leaders. 

“Get a-goin’, you, too,” cried Kit to the four chiefs. 
Gathering up what dignity they could, and casting re¬ 
proachful glances at the palefaces who had so “misun¬ 
derstood” them, they mounted and rode out to their band. 
The entife party soon drifted away over a ridge and 
were seen no more. 

“Good for you, son,” cried Ewing Young when he 
heard the story that night. “The way things laid you done 
the only thing that could be done. You’re a mountain 
man, Kit, an’ no mistake.” 

When the furs were at last brought through to Santa 
Fe and sold, Kit had more money as his shafe than he 
had ever seen before in his life. More than that, he had 
stood the test in the only kind of life he cared about. He 
went forward to a career that made him one of the best 
known and best loved men of the Southwest. As trapper, 
as Indian fighter, as scout, as government agent on an 
Indian reservation, he remained the gentle-spoken, quiet 
Kit you have become acquainted with. Cool, brave, hon¬ 
est, where other men boasted of what they could do, Kit 
did the thing and said nothing. His breed was scarce on 
the old frontier, just as it is rare everywhere else. You 
know the full name of our Kit, do you not? Yes, Kit 
Carson. 


THE TEST OF THE TRAIL 


261 


Only a* few short years were given the mountain men 
to do their work. Along the trails they had blazed came 
an ever-increasing stream of gold prospectors, buffalo 
hunters, cattlemen, farmers. The few remaining beavers 
retreated warily into the deeper fastnesses of the moun¬ 
tains. The once proud Indians looked wistfully at the far 
hills from the narrowing limits of their reservations. On 
the breezy plateaus and in the wooded mountain glens 
the bearded mountain man, with his long rifle across the 
pommel of his saddle, was seen no more. 

Questions on the Story 

1. What were the things going on in “Kit’s” home town that 
most interested and excited him ? 

2. What duties fell to the lot of the “cavvy” boy? 

3. Why were the Apache Indians so much dreaded by the 
white men? 

4. What conditions made parts of the Southwest good beaver 
country ? 

5. In what ways did Kit prove himself a brave, reliable young 
man? 

Things to Think About 

1. Do you think that the hero of this story deserved the fame 
that came to him? 

2. Was his prophecy about California a true one? 

3. Do you think this story still further proves the importance of 
horses in the western fur trade? 

4. Can you explain the meaning of the title of this story? 

Things to Do 

1. Find out all you can about the settlement and early history 
of Santa Fe. Report to the class. 

2. Read about the later life of Kit Carson—especially those 
parts that show his services to his country. 

3. Point out on a map the places mentioned in this story. 







ON THE RIVER OF THE WEST 









THE SLAVE OF FRIENDLY COVE 

'\X7ARM, moist winds sweep eastward from the Japan 
* ^ Current in the Pacific. The moisture falls as rain 
when mountains are reached, and flows back in great 
rivers toward the sea. Forests of giant trees flourish, 
giving refuge to a teeming population of wild things. In 
the forests, near the river mouths and along sheltered 
harbors on the coast, dwell tribes of Indians in their 
crude, timbered houses. The salmon in the rivers and the 
game in the woods make life easy and secure for them. 
Each year they store up great quantities of one article 
craved by the white men for the markets of the world: 
fur. It is chiefly the glossy pelt of the sea otter. 

When white men began to hear about the “Northwest 
Coast/' or the “Oregon Country," they were, no doubt, 
given some such word picture as the one above. Ships 
began to appear along that coast, nosing into Puget 
Sound and into the bays and sounds that dent the shores 
of Vancouver Island. They came all the way around Cape 
Horn with the goods and notions with which their owners 
hoped to tease away from the simple red men their price- 
265 













266 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

less furs. As always happened, the simple native did not 
remain simple very long. Perhaps this little story will 
give you some idea of what this northwestern fur trade 
was like. 

A ship named the Boston was being made ready to 
sail around to the Northwest Coast to trade with the 
Indians. Its owners were sending in the cargo a number 
of cheap guns. Also, they had decided, knives and 
hatchets, good enough for the Indians, could be made on 
shipboard during the long passage around the Horn. 
That meant a blacksmith, and they prepared to engage 
one. 

Over in Hull, England, where the owners of the Bos¬ 
ton purchased most of their blankets, molasses, rum, and 
beads for the Indian trade, they found a young man, 
John Jewett by name, who was not only a blacksmith, but 
one eager to go on the cruise of the Boston. John's father 
gave him money to use in buying furs on his own ac¬ 
count and helped him to set up a forge on the deck of 
the ship. At length the Boston weighed anchor and sailed 
southward. As she plowed along through the thousands 
of miles of ocean toward her far-off goal, John Jewett 
in his leather apron might have been seen day after day 
working his bellows or hammering away at his anvil. He 
made knives and hatchets and other metal articles it was 
thought the Indians would like to possess, and worked at 
making some of the trade guns more salable. 

At length the Northwest Coast was reached, and the 
Boston cast anchor in a place known to the sailors as 
Friendly Cove. Almost at once trouble began brewing 
between the sailors and the Indians. Maquinna, the chief, 
felt that he had been insulted by Captain Salter of the 
Boston. But he smiled and waited. 


267 


THE SLAVE OF FRIENDLY COVE 

A day came when his followers swarmed about the 
deck of the Boston, outnumbering' the crew four to one. 
It was the day of Maquinna’s vengeance. 

John Jewett, below deck at the moment, heard a sudden 
clamor above. He rushed up to help the Boston’s crew 
and was knocked senseless. When he came back to con¬ 
sciousness he found himself lying on the deck with Ma- 
quinna and his warriors gazing down at him. He was 
ordered to get up. It soon became plain to him that of 
all the Boston’s company his was the only life that had 
been spared. Under the chief’s orders, Jewett, with the 
help of the Indians, managed to work the Boston close 
inshore. A few minutes later he found himself in a large 
Indian village which clung close to the shore of Friendly 
Cove, “Friendly Cove! What a misfit name!” groaned 
John Jewett. He was allowed to sit on a log and watch 
what was going on. 

The excited Indians lost no time in rifling the cargo of 
the Boston. They made a gay holiday of it. Many articles 
of clothing were found on the ship. These the tribesmen 
did their best to get into. Some found hats and “wore” 
them dangling from their belts. One old fellow found a 
coat and fastened it about his waist like a skirt. Another 
was doing his best to make a pair of woolen mittens do 
service in place of his moccasins. Some found watches, 
and these were suspended around the new owners’ necks 
with thongs. John Jewett, still sick from the terrible 
sights he had seen on the Boston’s deck, his head still 
throbbing from the blow he had received, smiled at this 
strange masquerade of the Indians of Friendly Cove. 

Soon enough the thoughts of the prisoner turned so¬ 
berly to the question of his own fate. Why had he been 
spared? Was it only for purposes of torture? “Strange 


268 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

though,” thought he, “they leave me to myself. Not once 
have they struck me or taunted me since I set foot on 
shore. The stories I have read about these wild men of 
America would make me expect that every minute would 
be a torture. A certain respect, even, is given me. What 
can it all mean?” 

Next morning, after a sleepless night in a stout log 
enclosure, Jewett began to understand what was in store 
for him. He was not to die. Chief Maquinna meant him 
to be a slave. John had heard about the black slaves in 
the southern part of America; but here was he, a white 
man, in bondage to the red Indians. That was a new idea. 
The chief’s few words in broken English and his gestures 
gradually made it clear that John was to be a special kind 
of slave. The sharp old fellow had seen John Jewett’s 
work on the deck of the Boston. He required that the 
shipboard blacksmith should move his wonder-working 
forge to the shore and go on with his work. First of all, 
he was to keep the chief’s gun in order, and a good keen 
edge on the chief’s hatchet and knife. Then there were 
fish spears to be made for the other men of the village. 

“Well, this isn’t as bad as it might have been,” thought 
Jewett. “But how in the world can I ever contrive to 
escape from this place?” 

The weeks passed on, and the young Englishman found 
life in the Indian town bearable. He had plenty to eat 
and a dry, warm place to sleep. He could work at his own 
pace. In time he came to have much admiration for his 
master, Maquinna. What a figure the chief cut on those 
occasions when he came forth in his full ceremonial 
robes! He was very tall and straight, despite his age, with 
fine expressive eyes and a nose and chin which made one 


THE SLAVE OF FRIENDLY COVE 


269 


think of an image in bronze of some old Greek hero. 
Maquinna, on these state occasions, wore two penciled 



new moons in vermilion over his eyes. His robe, made of 
the lustrous pelts of the sea otter, reached to his knees. 
It was belted with a strip of native cloth of many colors. 
His leggings and moccasins were weighted down with 


















270 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

beads in oddly-designed patterns. Maquinna wore his 
glossy black hair combed straight back, well oiled, and 
sprinkled with white down. His attitude was more that 
of a king than of a mere chief of a few hundred savages. 

John Jewett found the life of these red natives inter¬ 
esting to observe. There were the hunting parties which 
slipped away into the dim forest with soft-footed tread. 
And what experts these red men were at handling their 
great dugout canoes! Every one in the village, down to 
the youngest papoose, so it seemed, could swim like an 
otter. No one had to work very hard. Indeed, when it 
came to real labor, the squaws and John Jewett did what 
was done. The Indian men could be interested only in 
exciting Work, like fishing or hunting or trapping. When 
these manly endeavors were lacking, they loafed about 
endlessly and played their odd games of chance. 

The prisoner decided that he ought to keep a journal 
of his experiences among the Indians. It would at least 
help occupy his mind. So he made a quill pen and mixed 
some boiled blackberry juice with his own blood for ink. 
He had saved a few scraps of paper from the Boston. 
From day to day he jotted down the happenings in the 
Indian village. 

One day Maquinna called his slave aside and muttered 
an order in his ear. A startled and sheepish look spread 
over the face of Jewett, for he had been told that it was 
not fit and proper for even a slave to live there among 
them without dressing like an Indian, and—this was the 
worst part of the new decree—without marrying one of 
the young Indian women. More than this, John learned 
that the bride-to-be had already been selected. As there 
seemed no way out of it, Jewett was duly married, and, 
on the same occasion, took to the summer costume of the 


THE SLAVE OF FRIENDLY COVE 


271 


red men. Can you imagine the tall young Englishman, 
in breechclout and moccasins, pounding away at his anvil 
under the trees, while the Indians idled about and 
watched his work? 

Maquinna’s experiment in making over John Jewett 
did not last long. It was often windy and raw along that 
coast, even in midsummer, and John grew ill from ex¬ 
posure. He begged Maquinna to allow him to get back 
into shirt and breeches. The chief listened and pondered, 
and apparently reached the conclusion that he had made 
a mistake in trying to make an Indian out of his slave. 
He told John he could give up his Indian raiment, and 
his Indian wife, too, for that matter. Before the day 
ended John Jewett was again a bachelor white man. 

Month followed month until two summers and two 
winters had slipped away. Then, suddenly—John Jew¬ 
ett’s calendar, which he had tried to keep accurate, told 
him it was July, 1805—a ship rounded the woody point 
at the entrance to Friendly Cove. A wave of excitement 
caught up the population of the village, old and young, 
and sent them flying to the beach. Another of those great 
canoes of the white man! A chance to barter long-stored 
furs for the precious wares of the visitors! 

But the feelings of the Indians were as nothing when 
compared with those of John Jewett, slave. Tears welled 
up in his eyes and a lump in his throat seemed choking 
him as he gazed out across the bay to where the strange 
ship, her sails now furled, was dropping anchor. White 
men, men of his own race, out there in that ship! All the 
longing, the homesickness he had fought back for two 
years, swept over the prisoner. He must, he must go home 
in that ship. 

Chief Maquinna would never part with his valuable 


272 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

slave willingly, that was certain. The trading would, as 
usual, take place on the deck of the ship, John would be 
kept in the background ashore, and, the trading finished, 
the ship would sail away again, its crew unknowing what 
despair they were leaving behind them in Friendly Cove. 
Out of his whirling thoughts John seized upon one plan 
that could be tried at once. 

The blacksmith leisurely joined the Indians on the 
beach. He made sure that Maquinna and other important 
men of the tribe saw him look indifferently out at the 
ship, then turn back to his forge. When, from the corner 
of his eye, he saw Maquinna making plans to go out to 
welcome the visitors, he sauntered to his small lodge and 
stepped inside. Once there he took one of his last scraps 
of paper and wrote: 

Captain : 

I, John Jewett, am a prisoner of the Indians living - along 
this coast. Help me, I pray you, sir, to escape from them. 

The bearer of this letter is the chief, Maquinna. Seize 
him and hold him for the ransom of myself from this 
captivity. 

John Jewett 

The note written, John strolled down to the beach, 
where Maquinna and his canoemen were about to pull 
away. 

“O chief Maquinna,” said Jewett, in as careless a tone 
as he could muster, “I have no wish to visit the canoe of 
the white men. But here, these marks on this paper will 
go in it to my father across the great water to tell him 
I am well and happy. Is it not good that an old man 
should know that his son is being watched over by the 
Great Spirit? Hand this, then, O Maquinna, to the chief 
of the big canoe.” 


THE SLAVE OF FRIENDLY COVE 


273 


Did a gleam of excitement show in John Jewett’s eye? 
Had he, then, been unable to mask his true feelings ? Was 
he, indeed, a poorer actor than he had thought? At any 
rate, Maquinna took two swift steps toward his slave 
and stood looking long into the eyes of the white man. 
At last: “John, you no lie to me?” in his broken English. 

Poor John Jewett! He took pride in his honesty. But 
how, how could he miss this chance, perhaps his last, to 
see his father and England again ? What would you have 
answered with Maquinna looking into your eyes and try¬ 
ing to drive back his suspicions? John Jewett stuck to 
his desperate falsehood, and the chief, still looking doubt¬ 
ful, entered the waiting canoe and was borne away to 
the ship. 

Captain Hill of the Lydia , out of Boston, received Ma¬ 
quinna and his leading men on board. After a few min¬ 
utes’ parley about the trading, the chief handed Jewett’s 
letter to the captain. Hill read it, glanced up quickly, 
then looked around to see where his men were stationed. 
Then: “Quick, men! Seize this Indian and hustle the oth¬ 
ers into their canoe! Look sharp!” 

Before the astonished Maquinna could make a move 
in defense, rough hands were upon him and he was 
thrown to the deck. From here he saw his followers 
driven over the rail and into their canoe. He was then 
dragged down into a dark corner of the ship’s hold and 
there securely chained. 

“Those queer scratches on that paper: what strong 
medicine there was in them!” So must have run Ma- 
quinna’s thoughts. And that other: “John, John lied to 
me.” 

John Jewett’s plan for his own rescue worked. The 
Indians lost no time in arranging for the release of their 


274 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

chief, with the result that only a day passed before the 
feet of the exile joyfully touched the Lydia's deck. 

“Now,” cried Captain Hill, “we’ll give a just punish¬ 
ment to this villainous Maquinna, as you call him. Get 
ready, men, to hang him to the yardarm.” 

John Jewett stood aghast. This affair was going all 
askew. He was ashamed of himself because of that lie, 
as it was. 

“Captain,” he cried out, “your pardon for speaking up 
so boldly. But you must not hang the chief Maquinna. 
You would be breaking your solemn oath, solemn though 
passed to savages; and remember that this chief, while he 
merits punishment for past offenses, yet has been kind 
to me. Also, captain, his death at your hands will ruin 
the fur trade along these shores for years to come. I beg 
of you, captain, let Maquinna go ashore to his people.” 

John Jewett won. Maquinna, his dignity sorely 
wounded, was soon on his way to the village. Plans for 
trade at that point were given up, and the Lydia weighed 
anchor. In a few hours the forest-clad shores of Friendly 
Cove grew dim as the ship breasted out to sea. John Jew¬ 
ett watched at the stern until the flying spray at last 
blotted out all trace of land. 

“Home! Home to England!” 

Questions on the Story 

1. What was the plan of the fur merchants that gave John 
Jewett his chance to make the voyage to the Northwest Coast? 

2. Why was his life spared by the Indians when the others of 
the ship’s company were killed ? 

3. Describe the chief, Maquinna. 

-4. What animal was chiefly trapped for its fur along that coast ? 

5. How did John Jewett contrive his escape from the Indians? 


THE SLAVE OF FRIENDLY COVE 
Things to Think About 


275 


1. Do you think it was right for Jewett to tell a falsehood in 
order to gain his freedom? 

2. In this fur trade along the coast of what is now Oregon, 
Washington, and British Columbia there are several new features. 
What are some of them? 


Things to Do 

1. Look up all you can find about the sea otter. 

2. Pretend that you are John Jewett and that you are keeping a 
diary. Write your diary for the first two weeks of your captivity. 




















THE OVERLANDERS 

CO YOU’RE goin’ through all the way to the Pacific 
^ Ocean, are you? Well, I declare, I have half a*no¬ 
tion to throw in with you an’ go along.” 

A tall, straight old man was standing on the bank of 
the Missouri, near the mouth of Osage Woman Creek. 
He looked wistfully past the younger man beside him 
to the three big river boats lying below with their prows 
pointed up against the current. 

“Yes, sir,” responded the younger man, Wilson Hunt, 
“we’re under orders from John Jacob Astor to go over¬ 
land to the Columbia River, help build a fort near its 
mouth, and engage in the fur trade.” 

“Plenty o’ beaver on the branches of this river,” an¬ 
swered the old man. “Last season I worked out west of 
here and brought in fifty prime pelts, myself. They won’t 
last long, though. Lot of changes along the Missoury 
since I come out here from Kentucky. I saw Lewis and 
Clark go out, and I saw ’em come back. Every year since, 
276 





THE OVERLANDERS 


277 


more trappers pole and paddle and tramp their way up 
into the beaver country. Expect where you’re goin’ it’s 
all fresh and new,” and again there was a wistful note in 
the old man’s voice. “I’m only seventy-five; I could make 
it, easy.” 

But the sons of the old pioneer, Daniel Boone, per-' 
suaded him to remain behind. He stood on the bank of 
the Missouri and gazed after the boats of Astor’s Over¬ 
landers until a bend of the stream hid them from his view. 
At last the frontier had caught up with Daniel Boone 
and had passed him by. 

For years mariners had searched for the River of the 
West. Spaniards, Englishmen, and Americans had 
coasted along the shore line north of California, seeking 
a great river, which, so word ran, reached so far inland 
that it almost cut the continent in two. Then Robert Gray, 
the American, easing his ship through dangerous 
breakers, had found its half-hidden mouth. He had 
named it the Columbia, after his ship. Truly a kingly 
river, the Columbia was, even though its rushing waters 
fell far short of dividing a continent. 

If John Jacob Astor had not made a certain trip to 
England, it would be unnecessary to mention him again 
in this book. In England he heard about the China tea 
trade and about the great and growing interest of the 
Chinese merchants in fur. At once the New York mer¬ 
chant saw how tea and fur might be combined in such a 
way as to add to the growing Astor fortune. 

“A new headquarters for my fur business—that is 
the next move. It must be located out on that great west¬ 
ward flowing river, the Columbia. My new post will tap 
the great Rocky Mountain beaver country on its fresh, 


278 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

western side; at the same time the sea-otter country I 
have heard about, out along the ocean shore, will be with¬ 
in easy reach. The fur will go to China in my ships; the 
ships will come to New York loaded with tea. Our people 
are thirsty for tea, just now, as the supply has been un¬ 
certain, what with wars and embargoes. Then back go 
the ships to my new post, laden with goods to trade to 
those Indians of the northwest coast for more fur.” A 
grand idea, John Jacob Astor, and worthy of that cool, 
straight-thinking brain of yours. 

Now back to Wilson Hunt, who had just had an inter¬ 
esting little visit with the famous Daniel Boone. Hunt 
was on his way across the continent to help put into effect 
the wide u ranging schemes of his employer, John Jacob 
Astor. With him were sixty men, a Sioux Indian woman, 
and two children. The interpreter to the Indians was 
Pierre Dorion. When Pierre appeared to take his place 
in Hunt’s boats he had with him his wife and his two chil¬ 
dren. He would not go a foot without them. Pierre was 
the only interpreter at hand who could ease the suspicions 
of the haughty Sioux, up river, so room was made for 
the entire Dorion family. 

Wilson Hunt’s plan was to leave the route of Lewis 
and Clark in the northern part of what we call today 
South Dakota, and to strike out across the plains and 
mountains for the country of the Crows, in Wyoming. 
At the western edge of their lands he hoped to find a 
good place to cross the continental divide. A more north¬ 
erly route meant crossing Blackfoot hunting grounds, 
and all reports pointed to the continuing hostility of these 
grim warriors. 

“Blackfoot”—what a curious name. Hunt inquired of 


THE OVERLANDERS 


279 


Dorion and other westerners in his party about the origin 
of the name. This is the explanation as he was able to 
piece it together: Long ago this tribe lived farther north, 
on the plains of western British America. For some un¬ 
known reason they decided to find a new home for them¬ 
selves. Tepees were struck, the travois 1 made ready, the 
robes and the papooses bundled in between the trailing 
poles, and the entire tribe turned southward. In the last 
stage of their journey to find elbow-room among the 
other tribes the red emigrants came to the edge of a vast 
prairie land scorched black that very day by a roaring 
prairie fire. But the travelers were in a great hurry. On 
they came across the hot, charred land. When at last they 
pushed into new lands that suited them, their moccasins 
and the feet of their ponies were black. “Blackfeet,” 
taunted the Crows and the Flatheads in derision. The 
name stuck—and so did the newcomers, as the other 
tribesmen found, to their sorrow. 

The day before the Overlanders left the river, a long 
boat belonging to a fur company drew abreast of Hunt’s 
party. What a thrill of interest came to Hunt and some 
of his companions when they learned that the dark- 
skinned little woman sitting among the boatmen of the 
strange craft was Sacajawea, the Bird-woman: Sacaja- 
wea, who had been guide, interpreter, and friend to 
Lewis and Clark, and who, ever since that great journey, 
had tried in her simple way to live as the white people 
lived. 

1 A conveyance used by western Indians. The travois (pronounced tra-voi') 
consisted of two poles, one end of each fastened at the sides of a horse, the 
other ends trailing on the ground. Between the trailing ends a basket or 
hammock was arranged, and here kettles, blankets, and sometimes even the 
papooses rode when a journey was being made- 



280 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Soon after this the Overlanders were trailing west¬ 
ward across the plains. They had a good supply of horses 
and traveled at a steady pace across the rolling country. 
Hunters, working out to right and left of the trail, had 
on hand at each night’s camping place a good supply of 
buffalo haunch or tongue or juicy elk steaks. Sixty hun¬ 
gry men ate their way through great stores of provisions 
daily. The Canadians in the party—and Hunt had hired 
a number of them because of their knowledge of the fur 
business—on these pleasant nights got out their fiddles 
and played the rollicking tunes so dear to the voyageurs 
of the Great Lakes country. Then the fiddles were laid 
aside, and boatmen’s songs were bellowed at the prairie 
stars. Ev'en the coyotes must have ceased their yelpings 
to listen. 

But the happy days of the Overlanders, the days of 
easy travel and of plenty, were soon over. When moun¬ 
tain walls loomed before them, their troubles began. First 
the weird, jumbled region of the Black Hills baffled the 
travelers. When they finally broke through and went on, 
game became scarce, water scarcer. After hard marching, 
the peaks of the Big Horns loomed ahead. The party met 
friendly Crows and followed these splendid riders along 
canyon walls and across ridges until they at last came 
down to the plains again west of the mountains. Here 
Hunt secured more horses. Seeing buffalo herds, he made 
a halt while the hunters shot a dozen of the big animals. 
Enough meat was dried to last the party for some time. 
The march toward the west went on. 

Now the Overlanders began to hear more and more 
about the Snake River, the great southern branch of the 
Columbia. The news made the wanderers feel that the 


THE OVERLANDERS 


281 


worst of their journey was behind them. But hearing 
about the Snake and reaching it were two different 
things. They followed up the Wind River for eighty 
miles, only to lose themselves in the baffling canyons. 
They retreated, turned southwest, and struggled on 
through a land apparently deserted by every form of 
game. Once they sighted, from a high ridge, the Three 
Tetons standing along the northwestern horizon in snow¬ 
capped grandeur. Beyond them, said one of the hunters, 
was the Snake. But Hunt led his men on to the southwest 
until at last they stood on a branch of the Green River, 
whose waters, far to the south, united with those of other 
streams to make the Colorado. Westward turned the 
Overlanders, and after hard marching through moun¬ 
tain defiles, came down at last to the rushing Snake, in 
eastern Idaho. That night the fiddles squeaked by the 
campfires more joyously than they had done for many 
weeks. 

“Boats, npw,” cried Hunt’s men. “From here we can 
paddle and float to the mouth of the Columbia.” The 
Canadians, in particular, unused to all this hot, dusty 
work on the trail, fairly itched to feel again a paddle in 
their grasp. 

At last fifteen canoes were ready for the water. But 
the expedition was weeks behind schedule, and already 
the hills were whitening with the October snows. The 
food supply was low; for some time now horse meat had 
been the mainstay of the party. Only a quick, easy pas¬ 
sage down the river would save the Overlanders from 
dire trouble. Wilson Hunt’s heart beat a little faster 
when he thought about his responsibility for the safety 
of his followers. 


282 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Away shot the canoes down the Snake, the old voy- 
ageurs yelling with delight to feel again the lift of water 
under a boat’s keel. Their swift, well-timed paddle 
strokes kept the canoes off gravel bar and hidden rock. 
Thirty miles they made, the first day; twenty the next. 
How glorious it was! Then the river curled and hissed 
and writhed in among ever-narrowing cliffs. The ex¬ 
plorers made long portages around falls and rapids, only 
to encounter worse ones ahead. Four canoes with their 
cargoes were lost. One voyageur was drowned. The 
river voyage came to an abrupt end. Nearly sixty people 
were afoot in a country of mountains and deserts, with 
winter at hand and supplies for only five days. Hunt and 
his assistants held a council. 

“As I see it,” said Mackenzie, a veteran of the North¬ 
west Fur Company of Canada, “we must divide into 
small bands and push on.” 

“Let us first cache our goods—all but the bare neces¬ 
sities,” replied Reed. 

“We may need those horses we left back at that aban¬ 
doned post,” observed Hunt. “Crooks, will you take six 
men and go back up river ? You may find those Shoshones 
again, and get us a supply of food.” 

These plans were agreed upon, and the Overlanders, 
now divided into five groups, struggled toward their dis¬ 
tant goal—all except Ramsay Crooks and his men who 
turned eastward but found neither horses nor food. 

What of Pierre Dorion and his little family in the 
midst of all these troubles? There they were, ready to 
march on into the wilderness ahead: Pierre himself, his 
Sioux wife, his little girl of four and his small son of 
two. A lean old horse carried all but Pierre. Horses had 


THE OVERLANDERS 


283 


been eaten and horses had been lost and horses had been 
turned loose to shift for themselves; but Pierre, easy¬ 
going in all things else, had stubbornly refused to give 
up that horse. No one had heard a complaint from the 
lips of the woman or a whimper from the children. Now 
the Dorion family dropped behind for a few days, and 
when Hunt and his men saw them again there were five 
Dorions, not four. The baby died a few days later, but 
the others went on to the white men’s goal at the mouth 
of the Columbia. Years later there was a Baptiste Dorion 
serving as voyageur for the Hudson’s Bay Company in 
western Canada. The tall canoeman had been that two- 
year-old boy who traveled, in 1811 and 1812, from St. 
Louis to the Pacific Ocean with his Sioux mother and his 
half-breed father. 

Wilson Hunt’s divided Overlanders had privations 
aplenty as they pushed on through snow and cold. With¬ 
out horses or boats, and with practically all the goods 
they had started with left behind, they went forward, 
each man carrying a twenty-pound pack on his back. 
Those who tried to follow along the course of the Snake 
soon found its banks so high and steep that they could 
not get down to the water even for a drink. The men on 
one side of the river found their way blocked completely 
by the mountains and had to be brought across the stream 
in a boat made from the hide of a horse. Then the party 
struggled on, now and then meeting a straggling band 
of Shoshone Indians. A lean pony or a dog, bought from 
these destitute tribesmen, furnished the principal food 
supply. The one meal a day now allowed barely served to 
blunt the constant hunger of the wanderers. 

On New Year’s Day, 1812, the fiddles sounded again. 


284 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

The thirty-five men with Hunt had reached a big winter 
village of the Shoshones. Here were food and hospital¬ 
ity. Toward the northwest could be seen the rounded tops 
of the Blue Mountains in Oregon. Beyond them, said the 
Shoshones, was the land of the friendly Walla Wallas 
and the point where the Snake met the rushing torrent of 
the Columbia. No wonder the fiddles sang that day in 
the village of the Shoshones. 

With their hunger satisfied for the first time in many 
weeks, and with hope in their hearts, Hunt and his fol¬ 
lowers started up the slopes of the Blue Mountains. Here 
the snow was deep and the cold bit into the bones of the 
men. But nothing could stop them now. At last they 
straggled down into a warmer region, and a few days 
later stood looking out across the Columbia. When they 
found a camp of river Indians they bargained for boats. 
At last there was no doubt about it: they could complete 
their journey by water. The Canadians capered and sang 
and speedily forgot the terrors of that long overland 
march. The main body of the Overlanders was soon car¬ 
ried to its destination on the swift current of the River 
of the West. Here Hunt found the men of his smaller 
parties that had set out on routes of their own choosing 
after the boats had been abandoned on the Snake. These 
smaller groups had come together in the mountains and 
had forced their way on through the wild country of the 
Seven Devils. At last, on the lower Snake, they had ob¬ 
tained boats and had hurried on to the mouth of the 
Columbia. 

Wilson Hunt, thinking about all of the Astor supplies 
and equipment he had lost on the journey, or had hidden 


THE OVERLANDERS 


285 


back in the mountains, had a feeling that he had failed 
his employer. What could his men, worn-out and empty- 
handed, do to help John Jacob Astor found his Pacific 
Fur Company? But when the tired leader looked about at 
his companions and remembered that almost every man 
who had started with him from the Missouri had come 
through alive, he knew he had no reason to be ashamed 
of his efforts. 

As for the men themselves, there was no end to the 
boasting they did about their exploit. Had they not con¬ 
quered a continent, even as Lewis and Clark had done? 
And had they not blazed a new trail across the plains and 
over the mountains? Here they were, safe and sound, 
ready to extend the boundaries of a new fur empire on 
the River of the West. 

Questions on the Story 

1. What interesting characters did the Overlanders meet on 
their journey westward? 

2. How did the route of the Overlanders differ from that fol¬ 
lowed by Lewis and Clark? 

3. What caused most of the hardships and troubles of the 
Overlanders ? 

4. How did tea play a part in the plans of John Jacob Astor? 

5. Tell how the Columbia River was discovered and named. 

Things to Think About 

1. Recall what you know about the young Daniel Boone who 
led some of the first settlers to Kentucky. 

2. Is there anything in this incident about Boone that shows 
us what the true pioneering spirit was like ? 

3. Pierre Dorion’s wife was an Indian woman. In this story 
does she show Indian traits? 


286 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


4. Do you see anything in the characters of the Canadian boat¬ 
men in Hunt’s party that made them successful in wilderness 
travel ? 

Things to Do 

1. Locate on a large map all of the places mentioned in this 
story. 

2. Try to find pictures of scenes along the Columbia and the 
Snake rivers. 






















THE VENGEANCE OF THE 
TON QUIN 


V7" ES, that's Astor's ship, there at the end of that dock. 

-*■ She sails tomorrow, I hear." 

“Not very big, is she? But a staunch-looking vessel, at 
that. If all those heaps of merchandise there on the dock 
go into her hold she'll be well ballasted." 

“Our friend, Astor, is easily the most ambitious man 
in the city. Not satisfied with more than his share of the 
fur trade up around the Great Lakes, he must reach out 
for the fur business of the Pacific. Not only is he send¬ 
ing out this ship to the Northwest Coast, but I under¬ 
stand a great company of his men will make the journey 
overland." 

“Yes, Astor's schemes are big ones. Who would ever 
have thought that the odd-looking young German, put¬ 
tering about in that little shop of his, fifteen years ago, 
would grow into the great John Jacob Astor of today?" 

A knot of business men of the rising little city of New 
York stood on the wharf and watched the loading of a 
287 





288 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

ship. While they watched they discussed its owner and 
his wide-reaching plans. Now a ship taking cargo, or 
discharging one, was generally no novelty in New York. 
But there was novelty about this ship, about its crew and 
passengers, its owner, its destination. All New York was 
excited. There was a tinge of romance, so people felt, 
about this new venture of their fellow-citizen, John Jacob 
Astor. 

Yes, Astor’s ship, the Tonquin, sailed on the morrow. 
Her cargo had been selected with great care. Not only 
were there the usual items of merchandise for the Indian 
trade—knives, hatchets, beads, kettles, paint—but also 
tools and implements of every sort needful in building a 
fort, furnishing it, defending it; for constructing river 
craft, for clearing land, for cultivating crops. Astor was 
really sending out a colony. His enterprise seemed almost 
to be a national matter. 

The passengers aboard the Tonquin were more inter¬ 
esting, by far, than her cargo. Where would Astor look 
for the men who could make his venture a success on 
that far-off Northwest Coast? He knew. He would look 
for them among the men of that great Canadian fur 
company, The North-west Company. What men those 
“Nor’westers” were! One of them, Alexander Macken¬ 
zie, had discovered the great river that bears his name, 
and had first crossed our continent. Another, Fraser, had 
found the river named for him in British Columbia. Da¬ 
vid Thompson had explored and mapped great areas of 
what is now Idaho and Montana. Many of the leading 
men among the Nor’westers were Scotch Highlanders, 
and when Astor coaxed some of them to join his enter¬ 
prise as partners, there came down from Canada to make 


289 


VENGEANCE OF THE TON QUIN 

the trip in the Tonquin a Mackenzie, a MacKay, two 
Stuarts, and a MacDougal. Bronzed, hardy men they 
seemed as they strode along New York’s streets and on 
down to the dock where their cabins on the Tonquin 
awaited them. 

These Scots would command in Astor’s new fur em¬ 
pire. But what about the “private soldiers”? Here again 
Astor turned to the north. No better men could be found 
in the whole world for Astor’s work than the voyageurs, 
the canoemen, of the Canadian fur companies. With pole 
or paddle they could steer a craft through tumbling rap¬ 
ids if that was humanly possible. They could, when need¬ 
ful, eat little and travel far over stony trails, carrying 
great packs on their backs, or by tumpline across the 
forehead. Astor hired a crew of these voyageurs, and 
down they came in their canoes by way of the Hudson— 
French-Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds. Before they 
went aboard the Tonquin they gave New Yorkers a 
sample of what the canoe, in expert hands, would do. 

The crew of the Tonquin was as carefully picked as the 
goods on board or the men who were to found the fur- 
trade outpost. For captain, Astor’s choice had finally 
settled on Jonathan Thorn, an officer of the American 
Navy on leave of absence. There .was no doubt of his 
ability to handle a ship and manage a crew. 

On September 8, 1810, the little Tonquin left her moor¬ 
ings, worked down through the upper and lower harbors, 
and was away to the south on her long voyage. John 
Jacob Astor, rubbing his broad hands together in deep 
satisfaction, saw her go. 

Seven months later the Tonquin, swinging in from the 
broad Pacific, sighted the wooded shore line of Oregon. 


290 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

Just opposite was Cape Disappointment, and below that 
the dangerous entrance to the mouth of the Columbia. 

The long voyage had not been a happy one. The Nor’- 
westers could ride a canoe in almost any kind of water. 
But a ship on the ocean—that was different. They were 
a weak, pale lot of adventurers before the Tonquin had 
been three days at sea. Captain Thorn had looked over 
these Scotchmen and their gayly-dressed voyageurs and 
had decided that he did not like them at all. He tried to 
order them about as he did the sailors of his crew. The 
partners of John Jacob Astor felt that they were scarcely 
under the orders of Captain Thorn, merely because they 
were traveling on the ship he commanded. The jolly Nor’- 
westers, used to mingling freely with their canoemen, 
could not understand the cold and haughty way Thorn 
moved about on his ship, driving his sailors to their work. 
They learned to hate and despise the lordly captain, while 
he grew suspicious of them and finally made up his mind 
that they were all imposing on Astor and knew nothing 
at all about fur or the fur trade. At one time, when the 
Tonquin had stopped near an island to take on a fresh 
supply of drinking water, a number of the Nor’westers 
had gone ashore in a small boat to explore the island. 
They were slower in returning than the captain thought 
they ought to be. He ordered the anchor up and bore 
away, leaving the men behind. The little boat followed, 
its occupants rowing desperately, but Thorn kept on un¬ 
til Robert Stuart pressed a gun to the captain’s head and 
said he would shoot if the Tonquin did not shorten sail 
and wait for the explorers. 

In spite of all the bad feeling on board the Tonquin, 
here she was, ready to land men and goods on the bank 
of the Columbia. Here Captain Thorn sank still lower in 


291 


VENGEANCE OF THE TONQUIN 

the esteem of his passengers, for he wrecked boats and 
sacrificed the lives of eight men in foolhardy attempts to 
work the Tonquin in over the bars to a safe anchorage. 
But at last it was done, and the battered Tonquin rode 
at anchor behind a wooded point at the entrance to a 
little bay twelve miles up from the mouth of the river. 
Soon the men and supplies were ashore. By early summer 
the log fort, with its small cannon, was complete. In 
honor of the man who had “dreamed” this post by the 
wilderness river, the place was named Astoria. Indians— 
Chinooks and Clatsops—swarmed about the new fort 
and fingered with awe and wonder the goods laid out 
for barter. 

The Tonquin had successfully finished her first task. 
But you will recall that she had another. According to 
Astor’s plan, the old Nor’wester men and their helpers 
were to work up the Columbia from Astoria and build 
up the fur trade with the Indians along the river and its 
branches, while the Tonquin was to sail away to the 
north, with a stock of trade goods, and try to secure a 
good cargo of sea otter and other peltries from the In¬ 
dians along the coast. 

Captain Thorn was soon at sea again, thankful, no 
doubt, to be leaving most of those hated Nor’westers be¬ 
hind. He had with him a small crew to man the ship, a 
clerk to check the trading, an interpreter, and Alexander 
MacKay. The ship plowed northward along the shore of 
our state of Washington and past the mouth of the strait 
leading back into the land toward the entrance to Puget 
Sound, at last dropping anchor in a bay off the west 
coast of Vancouver Island. The Tonquin was ready for 
trade with the Indians of that coast. 

“Now, remember, Captain Thorn,” Astor had warned 


292 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the Tonquin’s master, back there in New York, “you 
must be careful in your dealings with the Indians. Some 
ships I have heard about had great trouble and loss along 
that Northwest Coast. The cause was always the same: 
carelessness, and a failure to follow the red men’s way 
of trading.” 

But the bold captain was far away from his employer 
now. He was a blustering fellow, brave enough, but un¬ 
able to understand the difference between caution and 
cowardice. MacKay and others warned him that the In¬ 
dians along there were known for their treachery. “Do 
you remember the fate of the Bostont” they asked. But 
to Thorn these words of warning were only the murmurs 
of timid folk. He knew almost nothing about Indians, 
but he despised them and hated the work before him. 
Was he not an experienced officer of the United States 
Navy? It was almost an insult to ask him to make a mere 
trader of himself. Get it over with quickly, and then away 
to sea: that was his idea. 

For twenty years or more the Indians along that 
shaggy coast had been accustomed to seeing the ships of 
the white men drop anchor in sheltered harbors and sig¬ 
nal to the natives to come out with their furs to trade. 
The red men had learned how to haggle over prices with 
as much skill as the shrewdest “Bostonian” (all traders 
were “Bostonians” to the Indians). Most of them had 
picked up a few English words. There were shrewd, cun¬ 
ning fellows among them. When the Tonquin was 
sighted, the chief and his head men, taking a few samples 
of furs with them, pushed off in their dugouts for a visit 
to the great canoe of the palefaces. 

The wily old chief had been on these big trading canoes 


293 


VENGEANCE OF THE TONQUIN 

before. When he scrambled up to the deck of the Ton- 
quin he was surprised, first of all, to find the ship with 



no boarding netting up around the bulwarks. Other ships 
he had visited had had this netting to prevent the Indians 
from climbing to the deck at any point they chose. He 
also noted that the chief of the ship, as well as the men 














294 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

standing about, carried no weapons. But the cunning red 
man kept his surprise to himself, greeted Captain Thorn 
with great solemnity, and produced a few extra-fine sea 
otter pelts which he offered in trade. His followers also 
brought out bundles of fur from beneath their robes. The 
visitors moved eagerly about the deck, examining the 
knives, blankets, and other goods spread out there. 

But when it came down to the matter of prices for the 
pelts displayed by the Indians, Thorn was shocked at the 
demands made. He had expected to get otter skins at a 
half or a third of what was asked. 

“One knife, one otter skin? Ugh! One knife, one 
hatchet !” cried the old chief. He sniffed disdainfully over 
the bolts of red calico, and was, in general, quite insult¬ 
ing in his remarks about the beauty, quality, and useful¬ 
ness of every article for sale on the Tonquiris deck. All 
this was, no doubt, the old fellow’s way of opening up 
the trade. Few opportunities like this came his way. He 
wanted to get all the fun he could out of this one. Per¬ 
haps, too, what he had observed when he climbed aboard 
made him a shade bolder and more impudent than usual. 

But all this byplay on the part of the Indians did not 
amuse the blustering Captain Thorn. He did not like 
these dirty savages, anyway. The idea of an officer from 
the American Navy having to put up with these bickering 
heathen swarming over his deck! The captain strode 
angrily up and down. At last, when the chief held up a 
red-and-blue blanket, cackled in disdain over its thinness, 
and threw it from him, Thorn fairly exploded. 

“Get off my ship!” he roared. “You old villain, into 
your canoe and ashore with you till ye’ve learned man¬ 
ners !” He gave the old Indian a push toward the rail. 


VENGEANCE OF THE TON QUIN 295 

The grin on the seamed, coppery face vanished. In its 
place came a dazed look, as if he did not understand. This 
was the last straw with Thorn. He wrenched the old 
man's bundle of fur from him and with it struck him a 
smart blow across the face. For just an instant a deadly 
flame glinted in the eyes of the chief. It vanished; he 
stepped to the rail and dropped into his waiting canoe, 
followed by his braves. Without a word, without a back¬ 
ward look, the Indians paddled away toward shore. Cap¬ 
tain Thorn, his deck free of the “dirty savages," swag¬ 
gered about, much pleased with himself. 

“Captain," urged MacKay, an old hand at the Indian 
trade, “there's a favorable breeze. Get your anchor up 
and get the Tonquin out of this place while there’s a 
chance." 

“What?" bellowed the captain. “D’ye suppose I'd run 
before a set of naked savages while I had still a musket 
or a handspike aboard?" 

“But, captain, did you fail to see that look of hate on 
the old chief's face? You struck him—the worst insult 
you can offer an Indian. Only revenge will satisfy that 
whole tribe now. There’ll be no trade along here. Get the 
Tonquin out to sea or you'll regret it." But Thorn only 
shrugged his shoulders in contempt of the old trader’s 
advice. 

All was quiet in the little bay that night. About mid¬ 
forenoon of the next day, out came a big canoe with 
twenty paddlers and many bundles of fur. There in the 
midst of the canoemen sat the old chief, all smiles this 
morning. He made it known that he still loved his white 
brothers and that he desired above all else to come on 
board the Tonquin to take up the trading. 


296 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

“You see!” boasted Thorn to MacKay. “You see how 
it works? Show these dirty rascals that you’ll put up with 
none of their nonsense and they’ll soon come to heel. No 
shilly-shallying with Indians. I told you.” 

Up on deck came the Indians. The chief signaled other 
canoe-loads to come on. The trade became lively. The red 
men were meek. They accepted the white men’s prices 
without question. The deck of the Tonquin was alive with 
Indians. The piles of otter pelts, of marten and mink and 
fox, which were to make up the ship’s cargo for the voy¬ 
age to China, grew larger. 

“I told you,” gloated Captain Thorn to MacKay. 

But MacKay, old trader that he was, silently turned a 
strained, white face toward the captain. Some of the 
sailors, too, were becoming worried. Something was 
wrong. For one thing, the squaws stayed in the canoes, 
close to the ship; not one had come aboard, and not one 
had paddled away. Why? 

“Mr. MacKay,” whispered one of the sailors nervous¬ 
ly, “have you noticed that every Indian has one small 
bale of furs that he does not part with? He offers it for 
sale, then refuses the trade our men offer him. What 
does that mean, think you?” 

“Yes, John, I see. Treachery is afoot, I make no doubt 
of it. But with Thorn as captain we can only wait and 
see,” answered MacKay. 

MacKay and the suspicious sailors had not long to 
wait. Gradually the visitors had spread out around the 
deck, arranging themselves finally along the sides of the 
ship. When a sailor called Thorn’s attention to this, even 
the slow-witted captain began to sense that things were 
not right on the deck of his ship. He ordered four sailors 
aloft to begin to unfurl sail. 


VENGEANCE OF THE TON QUIN 297 

Too late, Captain Thorn. The agile old chief suddenly 
leaped to the center of the deck and uttered a wild, blood¬ 
curdling yell. In an instant out came a hundred bronzed 
hands from within an equal number of those mysterious 
little bales of fur. Each hand gripped a knife or a war- 
club. The Indians pounced on the crew of the Tonquin. 

The whites were unarmed and vastly outnumbered. 
Poor MacKay was one of the first to die. Muscular arms 
hurled him overboard, and the squaws waiting below 
killed him. Thorn defended himself with a pocket knife 
until he fell. The four sailors, up aloft, watching their 
chance, slipped down from the mainmast, leaped through 
a hatchway, and fastened it from below. At the bottom of 
the companionway they found Lewis, the clerk, who had 
been stabbed in the back and had fallen down the stairs. 

After a long time the confused sounds on the deck of 
the Tonquin died away. The four sailors peeped out from 
their stronghold and saw that the Indians had gone, tak¬ 
ing their furs and the merchandise with them. They, with 
Lewis, appeared to be the only men of the ship’s company 
left alive, and the clerk was lying down below, badly 
wounded. 

What was to be done? Four men could not drag up 
the anchor and bring the Tonquin out into open sea. The 
Indians would surely return. Why not take Lewis, lower 
one of the ship’s boats, and slip away in that along the 
coast? There was a chance that they might find their way 
back to Astoria. But Lewis refused to leave the vessel. 

“I am as good as dead now,” the clerk may have rea¬ 
soned. “1 may as well finish my life here as anywhere.” 
Was some deep plan of vengeance already stirring in his 
mind? 

Whatever may have been the thoughts and plans of 


298 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

the four sailors, or the feelings of Lewis, it is known 
that the seamen left that night in a small boat, and were 
never again seen by men of their own race. Rumors 
drifted down to Astoria at last, telling how they had 
fallen into the hands of the Indians and had been put to 
death. No one knows. 

The exultant Indians looked out at the Tonquin, still at 
anchor. They saw a figure crawl about over the deck 
and then disappear. It looked harmless enough. Again the 
canoes put off. The paddlers circled the ship. No sounds 
came from her. The canoemen came closer, listened, 
scrambled to her deck. Soon the little Tonquin swarmed 
with Indians, while the water about her was alive with 
canoes. 

Can you see Lewis, down below ? He hears the scurry 
of moccasined feet above. He peeps out and sees the wait¬ 
ing canoes. He summons the last ounce of his strength 
and crawls to the powder magazine. A moment later 
there is a deafening roar. The Tonquin, split into a thou¬ 
sand fragments, seems to leap toward the sky. The In¬ 
dians on shore see the waters of their bay churn and boil 
as the fragments of the ship, the wreckage of scores of 
canoes, and the mangled bodies of a hundred of their 
people drop into it from the spreading mantle of inky 
smoke above. 

How do we know the fate of the Tonquin's company, 
and the story of the terrible vengeance exacted by the 
Tonquin herself? 

You will remember that there was an Indian inter¬ 
preter aboard the ship. The life of this man was spared 
by the Indians. He at last escaped from the slavery they 
had put upon him, wandered down along the shore, and 


299 


VENGEANCE OF THE TONQUIN 

finally rejoined the Astorians. It is from his tale that we 
learn the fate of the Tonquin. 

The loss of the ship went a long way toward spoiling 
the well-laid plans of John Jacob Astor. Soon other blows 
fell that ruined his attempt to capture the fur trade of the 
Pacific Coast. The Company of the Nor’westers, with 
their headquarters up at Fort William on Lake Superior, 
had been scheming for some time to stretch their chain 
of posts westward to the Oregon Country. Their bold 
explorer, David Thompson, hurried in one day with the 
news that Astor’s men were already there. This made 
the leaders of the Nor’westers all the more eager to reach 
out for the trade of the Columbia. 

So it came about that a fleet of canoes slipped into 
the upper waters of the great river one day, and headed 
down the stream toward distant Astoria. MacTavish, the 
leader, sat in the stern of the first canoe. Paddles flashed, 
the songs of the voyageurs echoed among the forested 
hills, bells jangled, and the tasseled caps of the canoemen 
nodded and swayed as their owners sent the canoes for¬ 
ward down the sunlit stream. MacTavish knew some¬ 
thing that the Astorians down at their fort did not know: 
war had been declared between the United States and 
Great Britain. The men of the Canadian company made 
themselves believe that they were on a very patriotic en¬ 
terprise when they laid their plans to take Astoria away 
from the American company of John Jacob Astor. 

Duncan MacDougal, one of Astor’s partners, was in 
charge of the post of Astoria. He was, you will recall, 
an old Nor’wester himself. He greeted MacTavish, when 
the latter stepped from his canoe, as a long-lost brother. 
There was feasting and celebration at Astoria, much as 


300 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

if the Canadians and the Americans had been on the same 
side in the War of 1812, instead of on opposite sides. In 
the end the North-west Company took possession of As¬ 
toria. MacDougal may have thought it was hopeless to 
try to hold out against those hustling old friends of his. 
At any rate, he sold Astoria, “lock, stock and barrel,” to 
the Canadians. Some of the Americans there took service 
with the new lords of Oregon, and others made their way 
back to their homes in the east. 

After the war, Astor might have had Astoria back 
again, but it had been sold to the North-west people and 
nothing could be done about that. England and the United 
States soon came to an agreement jointly to occupy the 
Oregon Country. Astor could get no encouragement from 
his government to strive again for a share of the far 
western fur trade. It fell wholly into the hands of his 
Canadian rivals. 

But the Oregon Country was too rich a land to lie long 
under the control of those who counted the wealth of a 
region in the numbers of its fur-bearing animals. There 
was splendid timber in that region drained by the River 
of the West and its branches; there were the salmon of 
the rivers, the rolling central plains suited to grazing, and 
the rich soil waiting for the magic touch of the farmer. 
There was in Oregon, also, another kind of wealth: its 
Indian population. To many the greatest work in Oregon 
was to civilize and make Christians of the red men. Mar¬ 
cus Whitman came to carry on that work, and Henry 
Spaulding, and Father De Smet. When schoolhouses and 
churches rose in the Oregon Country, and when the 
plows of the farmers began turning their crooked fur¬ 
rows across stumpy clearings, the men of the canoe and 
the beaver trap vanished from the scene. 


VENGEANCE OF THE TON QUIN 301 

Questions on the Story 

1. What care did Astor show in preparing the Tonquin for her 
voyage ? 

2. What was the greatest mistake he made in this ? 

3. Why was Captain Thorn a poor man to send to carry on the 
trade with the Indians ? 

4. By what stratagem did the Indians gain control of the Ton¬ 
quin? 

5. Give an account of the later history of Astoria. 

6. What resources, besides fur, soon attracted men to the 
Northwest Coast? 


Things to Think About 

1. When people spoke of the “Oregon Country” in those days, 
did they mean what we do when we speak of Oregon? 

2. Do you think that Astoria was well located for the fur trade ? 
Were there some disadvantages? 

3. In your opinion, which gives a nation the better claim to new 
lands—a trapper or a farmer with his plow? 

Things to Do 

1. Try to find a picture of a small trading ship of that time. 
Learn, if you can, how it was built and equipped. 

2. Plan a review talk on the life and plans of John Jacob Astor. 

3. Imagine yourself one of Astor’s Canadians on board the 
Tonquin on its long voyage “ ’round the Horn.” Write a letter to 
a friend in Montreal telling about the trip. 

4. Look in textbooks in history for a picture of Astoria, 

5. A review: Make three lists, the first one containing the names 
of fifteen men who should be remembered in connection with the 
early fur trade; the second, at least six rivers; third, ten other 
place names. Compare your lists with those made by other mem¬ 
bers of your class. 



THE SILVER FOREST 




































I 










































THE SILVER FOREST 


T^TOW we jump right over a whole hundred years in 
^ ^ our stories of the fur traders and the trappers. We 
come down to a February day in 1936. A nipping day it 
is, too. When we leave our long, comfortable train and 
step out on the icy station platform, a glance at a ther¬ 
mometer hanging there in the train shed tells us it is 
thirty-five degrees below zero. Whew! 

A taxicab whirls us away between the gleaming banks 
of snow that line the way. Soon we are in the leading 
hotel of the sparkling little city of Wausau, Wisconsin. 

An hour later, after a good breakfast, we are off again 
—this time in a big motor coach that speeds along be¬ 
tween scattered farmhouses, and up and over big wooded 
ridges. We are not alone. In our coach, and in three 
others that follow ours, are dozens of men. They are well 
dressed. Their smooth faces and their easy ways tell us 
something about them. You can almost see the words, 
“business men” and “city folks,” written across the whole 
group. They are a long way from home, up here in the 
cold northern country in the dead of winter. 

Now does this sound like the beginning of another fur- 
trade story? Have you even thought of fur, so far? Well, 
305 



306 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

yes, if you have really made yourself a part of this ex¬ 
pedition, you have perhaps wished you had a big fur cap 
like that worn by the man in the third seat ahead of ours. 
Or perhaps you noticed some of the fine fur coats worn 
by those ladies you saw on the streets of Wausau. But 
you never dreamed, did you, that you were on a fur-trad¬ 
ing “voyage” ? But that is exactly what this is—the jour¬ 
ney of the fur brigade of 1936. 

Where, then, are the singing voyageurs, in their buck¬ 
skin clothes and their beaded moccasins? Where are the 
weather-worn faces and mops of uncut hair ? Where are 
the packs of trade goods, and the camping outfit and the 
snowshoes, and the long rifles? Not one of our fellow 
travelers looks as if he had ever had acquaintance with 
such things. But each one of them has a keen eye for a 
prime pelt. Each has a head full of knowledge about what 
the women of the world are demanding in the way of 
fur coats and capes and fur collars and scarfs, and what 
these women stand ready to pay for what they want. Oh, 
yes, each one of them has also a nice leather-incased 
check book. There is your 1936 fur buyer. 

Our coaches spin over the white, frozen road. Soon 
we begin to see heavy patches of forest. In large open¬ 
ings in the woods we see dozens and dozens of sharp- 
roofed little board houses sticking up out of the snow. 
Then we notice close woven wire fences enclosing all the 
land on either side of the road. In a few minutes we turn 
off into what seems to be a park among the big trees. 
There before us, scattered through the woods, are big, 
comfortable-looking houses, office buildings, warehouses, 
small buildings here and there, and one or two large ones 
that look almost like factory buildings. It is almost a 


THE SILVER FOREST 


307 


city, right there in the woods. There is a post office near 
by, called Hamburg. It is important only because of this 
woodland “city” we have just entered in our motor 
coaches. We step out into the keen air and hustle across 
the gritty snow into a warm, well-furnished house. 

We learn with surprise that our fur-trading expedi¬ 
tion has come to journey’s end; that the fur trading will 
take place right there. As soon as we are warm we hurry 
out to have a look at the trappers. If there is to be fur 
trading there must be trappers, we argue. Surely there 
must be a great village of Indians somewhere about, In¬ 
dians who have brought in a great wealth of fur from 
their trap lines. Or perhaps the winter camp of white 
trappers lies here, trappers like Jim Bridger or Jed Smith. 
We look in vain for wigwams of the red men and for log 
cabins of the white. No traps, no bales of fur by blazing 
campfires. Not a coonskin cap or a red blanket showing 
anywhere among the trees. Nothing that in the least re¬ 
minds us of anything we have ever read or heard about 
the fur trade. Queer. Queer-looking fur traders in a 
queer-looking place for a barter in peltries! 

“Going! Going! Gone! Sold to the gentleman from 
New York for four hundred sixty-five dollars!” Down 
comes the auctioneer’s hammer. A “bright with silver” 
pelt, a rich, lustrous, glossy silver-fox skin has just 
passed from the hands of the “trapper” into those of a 
“fur trader” from New York. 

We are in a big room where great windows let in the 
brilliant sunshine. Our fellow travelers are all there. Men 
are coming in at a corner door burdened with sparkling 
masses of furs. The silvery pelts are spread carefully on 
long counters, in the strong light, where all may look 


308 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

them over. Behind a long table at one end of the room 
stands the auctioneer with his assistants. Our friends 
have their pads and pencils out. Their check books are 
handy. Here in this pleasant room, right under our noses, 
the fur trade is on in earnest. 

We find plenty to interest us in this novel, modern fur 
business. We learn that all this gleaming harvest of fur 
was “raised” in the forests about Hamburg. We are 
going to understand how men and old Dame Nature, 
working together, have produced this shimmering tide 
of fur. We shall understand at last why these fur buyers 
have come hurrying through the winter cold to little 
Hamburg from the four corners of the nation. 

At the end of two interesting days we are on our way 
again back to our train. We are told that more than seven 
thousand silver-fox skins had been purchased by our 
traveling companions. If we could add up the amounts 
set down on the stubs in all those check books we should 
be face to face with the sum $550,000. Now it begins 
to dawn on us that we have had a peep at something very 
big and important. Let us go back now to find how it all 
started. 

Frederick Fromm came to America from Germany in 
1883. Like all thrifty Germans, he looked for good tim¬ 
bered lands with strong rich soil underneath. He found 
what he wanted in north central Wisconsin. He started 
to make a farm. 

Soon several little Fromms were running about the 
farm home. Father Fromm had great respect for the 
teachers he had known back in Germany. There was the 
kind of work he wanted some of his boys to do when they 
grew up: teach in the schools of Wisconsin. He got ready 
to give his boys a good education. 


THE SILVER FOREST 


309 


What fun the Fromm boys had in the big woods all 
about their home! They hunted and fished and wandered 
about, studying the plants and trees and watching the 
animals and birds. They grew to love it all. There were 
Edward and Henry and Walter and John. Edward was 
the only one of them who ever taught school for so much 
as a single day, and he gave it up in a few weeks. 

Dimly there was forming in the minds of the boys the 
idea that something was to be done' with the big, wild 
country about them besides slashing down the trees and 
grubbing out the stumps and turning the fairy wilderness 
into humdrum farms. They thought and schemed and at 
last made up their minds what they would do. They would 
raise ginseng. 

Now ginseng is a wild plant having a large root with 
a sweetish taste. Ginseng grows in shady hardwood for¬ 
ests. Years ago many men, white and red, spent much of 
their time hunting for this plant, for in China there is a 
steady market for it. The Chinese believe it has great 
value as a medicine, and are willing to pay high prices 
for it. Many people have tried growing ginseng on plots 
of ground shaded under a loose roofing of lath. Only a 
few have succeeded in developing good beds of ginseng. 

The Fromm boys were keen and alert and patient. 
Soon they were producing ginseng in quantities that gave 
them a substantial profit. 

All along they had been even more interested in the 
wild animal life in the woods about their home. Their in¬ 
terest soon narrowed down to foxes. They watched the 
wild red foxes and trailed them to their dens. They were 
sure one of these dens contained baby foxes. So they set 
up a tent near by, brought food and blankets from home, 
and went into camp. They knew those little foxes would 


310 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


get hungry and sally out. At the two doorways of the 
fox home steel traps were set—only the sharp teeth of 
the traps were padded over with soft woolen cloth to 
prevent them from injuring the young foxes. 



A day passed, and a night, then another day and night. 
Then there was a sudden squeal and a flurry of fur, and 
a little fox lay safely held by the trap. Before the day 
was over the boys had another. The picture on this page 
shows John and Edward each holding one of the captured 
fox puppies. Walter Fromm took the picture. This was 
back in 1909. 






THE SILVER FOREST 


311 


Right there the Fromm boys were launched in the fur 
business. They began reading and studying everything 
they could find, if it told them anything about how to 
raise foxes for the fur market. They made mistakes. 
They studied their mistakes and tried hard not to make 
them a second time. Slowly they built up their knowledge 
of foxes, how to breed them, how to feed and care for 
them, how to make them develop fine glossy pelts. 

“We’ve been making mistakes and learning from them 
ever since,” says Ed Fromm. “We’ll never know all there 
is to know about fox farming.” 

Red foxes are keen handsome fellows, but their pelts 
command a modest price. Ed and Henry and Walter and 
John realized that they must raise foxes whose skins had 
a greater value. They wanted to raise silver foxes. But 
what are silver foxes? Only “accidents” in a family of 
red fox puppies? That’s what the scientists say. Then 
how could you ever be sure whether the young foxes born 
on your fox farm would be common red ones or the valu¬ 
able silver ones? The Fromm boys decided they would 
make sure if that could be done. 

What a time of it the boys had during the next few 
years! Diseases broke out and fox puppies died. Costly 
silver foxes added to their stock proved valueless. Once 
the boys coaxed their parents into putting a mortgage 
on the farm. The money raised in this way went toward 
the purchase of three splendid silver foxes. The cost was 
$7,000. Then the World War came, the world market for 
fur was destroyed, and the Fromm boys saw their costly 
new foxes shrink in value to $200 apiece. 

Right here that patch of ginseng came to the rescue 
of the fox farm. The boys sold a great harvest of the 


312 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

roots at fabulous prices, bought more fine silver foxes 
from fox farmers who had no ginseng field behind them, 
and went steadily forward increasing the size of their 
farm and the number of their foxes. Ed Fromm says that 
one of the happiest days of his life was that day in 1917 
when he and his brothers paid off that mortgage on 
Father Fromm's farm. By that time they knew they were 
on the right track. They were raising hundreds of fox 
puppies each year, and all of them were the prized silver 
foxes. 

Do you remember our “trapper,” the auctioneer ? That 
was Ed Fromm, president of Fromm Brothers, Inc. 
Pleasant, blue-eyed Ed Fromm is not a trapper at all, of 
course. He is a fur farmer, the head of the greatest fur 
farm in the world. I had almost numberless questions to 
ask him when I visited him one hot July day. 

“I saw hundreds of little board fox houses on my way 
in here, Mr. Fromm. But I didn’t see many foxes. Where 
are they all ?” 

“Those little shacks you saw are the summer cottages 
of our foxes,” he answered. “Father Fox, Mother Fox, 
and a litter of fox pups—a fox family—in each house. 
Foxes like to burrow in the ground. You’d find a nice 
deep cave under each of those little houses. The fox fam¬ 
ily is down in there these hot days.” 

“Among some wild animals, so I’ve heard, the father 
of the family doesn’t pay much attention to his children. 
How is it in the fox families, Mr. Fromm?” 

“That’s one nice thing about foxes. Baby foxes are 
born blind and helpless. The father of the litter takes 
hold and takes a full share of the responsibility for rais¬ 
ing the family properly.” 


THE SILVER FOREST 


313 


“I did see a few foxes sitting out in the sun near their 
homes when I came in here. I must confess I couldn’t see 
much beauty in their pelts, though. I should feel more 
like offering you four hundred and sixty-five cents for 
one of them than four hundred sixty-five dollars.” 

Ed Fromm laughed. “You’d lose money at that figure. 
Now let me tell you how we turn that dingy hide into 
such a mass of sparkling fur as you have seen in our sales¬ 
rooms and in our exhibits. When I say ‘we’ I mean the 
Fromm Brothers and Old Lady Nature. Did you notice 
all the woven-wire fence around here? Not just along 
the roads, but back through the woods, everywhere? 
There is such a fence enclosing each of our eighty-acre 
wooded areas. Along in September our foxes will be 
turned loose in these forested places—about two thou¬ 
sand foxes to each eighty acres. 

“There in the woods the foxes remain while the frosty 
October nights come on. There they are when the winter 
snows come down, and when the mercury drops away 
below zero. The foxes wander about and dig and hunt. 
You can almost see the fur deepen and thicken on their 
backs. Day by day that silvery sheen comes out on the 
furry surfaces. We feed the foxes and watch over them. 
But nature puts on them those sparkling pelts. That’s the 
Fromm way of supplying the world with much of its 
finest silver-fox fur.” 

When Mr. Fromm stopped talking I had more ques¬ 
tions ready for him. I wanted to know* all about the size 
of their fur farm, the number of foxes they had, and 
how many men were needed to care for the place. I 
learned that the Fromms have twelve thousand acres in 
their forested little kingdom. Four hundred men work 


314 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

there all the time, feeding and guarding the foxes. The 
handsome pelts of twenty thousand silver foxes will, 
next year, find their way out to the markets of the world. 
Six thousand fox couples will rear their large families 
of fox puppies in and under their little board houses. 
“You and your brothers have made a great success of 



fur farming, Mr. Fromm,” I said when we parted. “Has 
it been fun?” 

“Yes,” he said, “it has been fun. Exciting, too. We 
have never known what to expect. We have had to keep 
on learning right along. That is good for a man. Maybe 
it is as good as going to a university.” 

Ed Fromm turned his blue German eyes on me. He 
was smiling in a half-dreamy way. “Yes, it has all been 
fun. Fun to see your boy dreams slowly come true. Go 
and tell that to the young folks in the schools.” 





THE SILVER FOREST 


315 


Trapping and marketing furs is one of the very oldest 
businesses in America. As we see, it is still going on. 
Only today there is a new kind of fur business that men 
carry on even while the old kind goes on year after year 
in Canada, and in the rough and brushy sections of our 
country. The old-time trapper still sets his traps in the 
forests and along the streams, and gathers in his annual 
harvest of wild-animal peltries. The modern fur farmer, 
on his muskrat or fox farm, breeds and raises his own 
fur “crop/’ The products of each reach the same markets. 

Today more people than ever before wear furs for pro¬ 
tection from the cold or for giving rich effects to their 
costumes. There has never been a time when so much 
money was spent each year for fur. Is it any wonder, 
then, that enterprising men have continued to turn their 
energies in the direction of the fur trade ? Should we be 
surprised to know that some of our states, Wisconsin 
notably, carry on experiments year after year to learn 
all the facts about raising and caring for fur-bearing 
animals? 

But the days when the fur trade led men into far 
wildernesses and among strange Indian tribes belong to 
the past. No longer does the world’s fur supply come out 
to civilization along trails of danger and romance. For 
long years now those trails have been trampled out by 
the busy feet of farmers and lumbermen and miners. 
The thousand campfires that once marked the course of 
the fur trade have long been gray and cold. 






















































































V * 






























































































* # 












GLOSSARY 


Allouez (a-loo-a'), Father Claude (1620-1690), early French mis¬ 
sionary to the Indians near the shores of Lake Michigan. 
He founded a mission on the St. Joseph River. 

American Fur Company, one of John Jacob Astor’s companies. 
It operated in the region around the Great Lakes and along 
the Mississippi River and its branches. 

Apache (d-pa'-cha), warlike tribes of Indians that lived in New 
Mexico and Arizona. 

Ashley, General, a resident of early St. Louis, who organized 
important expeditions (the first about 1823) for the Rocky 
Mountain fur trade. 

Astor, John Jacob (1763-1848), immigrant boy from Germany. 
By the year 1810 he had become the leading figure in the 
fur trade of the United States. 

Astoria, a fur-trading post established by Astor near the mouth 
of the Columbia River, in Oregon, in the year 1811. 

bagittaway (bag-it'-ta-wa), an old Indian game, played with a 
ball which was tossed about or hurled against the goal post 
by means of a stick having a small wicker basket at one 
end. Almost any number of Indians engaged in the game at 
the same time. 

Bighorn River, a stream that rises in Wyoming and flows north¬ 
east into Montana, where it empties into the Yellowstone 
River. It was on a branch of this river that General Custer 
and his men of the Seventh U. S. Cavalry were defeated 
and killed by the Indians in 1876. 

“big knives,” a term by which the Indians living along the Ohio 
River and in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes often 
referred to the American pioneers. The term “long knives” 
was also common and had the same meaning. 

Blackfeet, Indian tribe, usually hostile to white men, living in 
Montana. Remnants of the tribe still live in and near the 
ancient hunting grounds, and their tepees are a common 
sight in Glacier National Park. 

“black robes,” a name the Indians applied to the Jesuit mis- 

317 


318 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

sionaries who labored among the red men to convert them 
to Christianity. 

Blue Mountains, mountains of northeastern Oregon. They lie 
along the famous Oregon Trail where it crosses from the 
Snake to the Columbia River. 

Boone, Daniel, a hunter in western North Carolina, and one of 
the earliest emigrants to Kentucky. Later he moved on to 
Missouri. When an old man he made a long journey out 
across the plains. He died in 1820. 

Bridger, James, one of the early trappers and explorers in the 
Rocky Mountain area. He was the first white man to ex¬ 
plore the land around Great Salt Lake. Fort Bridger, in 
southwestern Wyoming, is named for him. Bridger’s ac¬ 
tivity as a trapper began in the first quarter of the nine¬ 
teenth century. 

cache (kash), a hole in the ground, or any hiding place, for extra 
provisions, or for implements or valuables, such as bales 
of fur. The word comes from the French language. 

Canada, originally the French colony along the St. Lawrence 
River. It is a word used by the early Indians, to whom it 
meant only a small locality near Quebec. 

Carson, Christopher (1808-1868), a famous hunter, guide, ex¬ 
plorer, and Indian agent of the Southwest. In later years 
he made his home at Taos, New Mexico. Carson City, 
Nevada, is named for him. 

Champlain (sham-plan'), Samuel de (1567-1635), founder of the 
French colony of Canada, and explorer of the region. 

Champlain, Lake, a long, beautiful lake on the boundary be¬ 
tween the states of New York and Vermont. It was dis¬ 
covered in 1609 by Champlain and was named for him. 

Charlotte, Fort, western headquarters for the North-west Fur 
Company of Canada. It was located at the western end of a 
long portage from the shore of Lake Superior. About 1810 
it was a famous center for the fur trade of that region. 

Chippewas, members of an Indian tribe living, in earlier times, 
near the Strait of Mackinac. From here they moved slowly 
westward into northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, where 


GLOSSARY 


319 


they live today on scattered reservations. The name of this 
tribe is often written “Ojibwav.” 

Cimarron (sim-d-ron') River, a stream in western Kansas and 
Oklahoma. The old Santa Fe Trail crossed its upper course. 

Colter, John, a hunter in the employ of Lewis and Clark. Later, 
as a trapper, he was captured by the Blackfeet and, in mak¬ 
ing his escape, discovered the natural wonders in what is 
now the Yellowstone National Park. 

Comanche (ko-man'-che), an Indian tribe once living on the 
plains of western Kansas and Oklahoma. They were expert 
horsemen. 

continental divide, a dividing line down along the crests of the 
Rocky Mountains, the rivers on the east side of which 
unite with the Mississippi and its branches, while those to 
the west find their way into the Pacific Ocean. 

coyote (kl-o'-te; ki'-ot), a small, swift prairie wolf, still common 
on our great western plains. A familiar sound on the plains 
at night is the loud and continued howling of the coyote. 

coureurs de bois (koo-rur-de-bwa'), a term the French rulers in 
Canada applied to those who wandered away into the wild¬ 
erness to buy furs, but who did not have a license to do so. 
It is, of course, a French term and, strictly translated, means 
“runners in the forest” or “forest rangers.” 

Crows, a tribe of Indians whose early hunting grounds were in 
Wyoming. 

Detroit, originally a French fur-trade and military post where 
the modern city now stands. Cadillac established the first 
post there in 1701. 

Fitzpatrick, Thomas, one of the men of the Ashley expedition in 
1822. He led trappers across Wyoming and through South 
Pass. 

Fremont, John C. (1813-1890), famous explorer in the Rocky 
Mountain country. The trappers and traders had been over 
much of the country he explored years before, but he 
marked his routes carefully and sent in valuable reports. 


320 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


fur brigade, a name often given by the fur companies to their 
bands of paddlers and trappers sent out on long expeditions 
to the fur country. 

Georgian Bay, a large, easterly extension of Lake Huron. 
French explorers and missionaries came early to the shores 
of this bay. The old canoe route up the Ottawa River led 
out to the bay and then continued on westward. 

Glass, Hugh, one of the early trappers along the Missouri and 
its branches, active about 1822-1824. There is a story that, 
after he had been almost killed by a grizzly, his companions 
went on without him. He recovered sufficiently to crawl 
and stumble eastward for many miles until he reached a 
trading post. When he became well and strong again he 
went on to the mountain country. The poet, John G. Nei- 
hardt, has written a fine poem about Hugh Glass. It is called 
“The Song of Hugh Glass.” 

Grand Portage, a small town on the northwestern shore of Lake 
Superior. At this point on the lake shore the men of the 
North-west Company used to disembark after their long 
trip from Montreal, and portage their goods to Fort Char¬ 
lotte, some miles inland on the Pigeon River. 

Gray, Robert, the American seaman who brought his ship to the 
Oregon coast and found the dangerous entrance to the 
mouth of the Columbia River. The river was named after 
his ship. 

Groseilliers (gro-zhe-a'), Medart, brother-in-law of Radisson. 
He loved the western wilderness and made one expedition, 
and perhaps more with Radisson out into the Great Lakes 
country. His adventures narrated in this book occurred 
about 1660. 

habitants, the unimportant people of Canada and New France, 
such as the tenant farmers. 

Henry, Alexander, one of the first British fur traders to visit the 
Great Lakes after that region had become a part of the 
British Empire. For a time his life was in great danger, as 


GLOSSARY 321 

the Frenchmen in the scattered posts, and the Indians, ( 
generally hated the newcomers. 

“honkers,” a name often applied to Canada geese because of 
the peculiar, loud cry they utter in flight. 

Hudson’s Bay Company, the famous trading company organ¬ 
ized in England on the advice of Radisson and Groseilliers. 
The company established fur-trading posts on and near 
Hudson’s Bay, spread its enterprises westward, and to this 
day carries on a great trade in western Canada. 

Hunt, Wilson, the leader of Astor’s party of trappers and traders 
that crossed the continent in 1811-1812 to help found the 
new post for Astor at the mouth of the Columbia. 

Iroquois, Indians of the famous Iroquoian Confederacy within 
the boundaries of the present state of New York. The In¬ 
dians around them belonged to a different branch of the 
red race, and they and the Iroquois were generally at war. 
Because there were at first five tribes of the Iroquois, they 
are often referred to as the Five Nations. Later, another 
tribe joined them and they were known as the Six Nations. 
After the Revolutionary War the Confederacy was broken 
up, and today the remnants of the tribes are widely scat¬ 
tered. In their great days the Iroquois had a far-reaching 
influence on the course of the fur trade. 

Jesuits, the most noted class of French missionaries who came 
to New France to devote their lives to the conversion of 
the Indians to Christianity. They showed marvelous 
patience and courage in their work. 

Jewett, John, a young English blacksmith who traveled to the 
Northwest Coast on the ship Boston , and was there cap¬ 
tured and held by the Indian chief as a slave. 

Kiala, chief of the Fox, or Outagami, tribe of Indians. He 
dreaded the influence of the white man and roused his tribe 
to make war on the Frenchmen and their Indian allies. 
While on a mission to Quebec (about 1727) he was seized 


322 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

and sold as a slave. He died on a sugar plantation in the 
French West Indies. 

Kickapoo, Indian tribe living at different times in Michigan 
and Wisconsin. 

kinnikinnick (kin-i-km-nik'), the inner bark of the red alder, or 
of other shrubs, dried, ground fine between the palms, and 
used in the place of tobacco by northern Indians. They 
preferred tobacco when they could get it. Often they mixed 
the kinnikinnick with a small quantity of tobacco. 

lacrosse, the French name for the Indian game of bagittaway. 

Langlade, Charles, a famous half-breed leader of the western 
Indians, especially active about 1763-1765. His father was 
French; his mother was a girl of the Ottawa tribe. It was 
Charles Langlade and his Indians from the west who were 
chiefly responsible for the defeat of Braddock in the woods 
of Pennsylvania. It was Langlade’s claim that he had taken 
part in ninety-nine battles. 

La Salle, Robert (1643-1687), famous French explorer. He 
sought to gain for France a strong colonial empire in the 
Mississippi valley. He entered the fur trade in order to 
make money to carry out his patriotic enterprises. He built 
a fur-trading ship, the Griffon, and sailed it on the Great 
Lakes. 

Lisa, Manuel, a Spaniard living at St. Louis who was one of the 
first men to engage in the fur trade along the Missouri. His 
first expedition up the Missouri set out in 1807. 

Mackinac, the name of the strait between lakes Huron and 
Michigan, also of the most famous of the islands lying in 
the strait. Important as a center of fur trade activities in 
early times, and famous today as a holiday and lake- 
excursion center. 

Mandan, the name of an Indian tribe along the Missouri River 
where it passes through the Dakotas. These Indians often 
sold horses to the fur traders. 

Manitou (man'-i-too), a name applied by many Indians to a 


GLOSSARY 


323 


spirit, or god, which, so the red men believed, made itself 
felt through some force of nature. 

Manitoulin Island, a long island which lies across the entrance 
to Georgian Bay from Lake Huron. 

Marquette, Father James (1637-1675), famous French mission¬ 
ary and explorer. In company with the trader, Louis Joliet, 
he made a long voyage down the Mississippi River. He, as 
well as many of the other missionaries, felt that the in¬ 
fluence of the fur traders on the Indians was bad. 

Menominee, the name of an Indian tribe living in eastern Wis¬ 
consin. They were generally friendly with the whites. To¬ 
day their reservation occupies a part of the tribe’s ancient 
hunting grounds. 

Mohawk, the name of an Indian tribe or division of the Iroquois. 

Montreal, the second post established on the St. Lawrence. It 
is today a large and famous city. 

Mudjikewis, a powerful chief of the Chippewas at the time of 
the Indian surprise of Fort Mackinac. 

New Amsterdam, the Dutch name for New York. 

New France, the name generally applied to all of the lands in 
North America claimed by the French. 

Nicolet (ne-ko-le'), Jean, the first white man to see Lake Michi¬ 
gan. Champlain sent Nicolet on this important voyage of 
discovery in 1634. 

Nipissing (nip'-i-smg), Lake, a large lake in Ontario which the 
fur traders traversed in going from the Ottawa River to 
Georgian Bay. 

Northwest Coast, a name applied to the entire coastline north 
of California, on the Pacific. It was a term used by ship 
captains and traders from New England. 

North-west Company, The, the second great fur trading com¬ 
pany established in Canada by Englishmen and Scotchmen. 
The Hudson’s Bay Company was, of course, the first. 

Oregon Trail, a famous trail that led westward from the Mis¬ 
souri River and eventually led to Oregon. Trappers traced 


324 SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 

out a large part of the route before the wagons of settlers 
passed over it. 

Ottawas, an Indian tribe living near the north end of Lake 
Huron. They were among the first of the western Indians 
to take their furs to the French at Montreal. 

Ottawa River, a large river of Ontario followed by the canoe- 
men on their long voyage to the western lakes. 

Perrot (per-ro'), Nicolas, a famous French traveler among the 
Indians about 1670. He was one of the cleverest “ambassa¬ 
dors” sent by the French to win the friendship of the In¬ 
dians. 

Pigeon River, the boundary between Minnesota and Canada 
near Lake Superior. 

Platte River, in Nebraska, along which ran the Oregon Trail. 

Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas, who conspired, in 1764, to drive 
the British out of the western country. 

Pottawottami (pot'-d-wot'-a-mi), an Indian tribe living at va¬ 
rious places in the Great Lakes region. Early in the nine¬ 
teenth century most of the tribe lived in northern Illinois, 
in the neighborhood of Chicago. 

Puget Sound (pu'-jet), an arm of the Pacific Ocean extending 
inland at the boundary between Washington and British 
Columbia. 

Radisson (rad-is-on'), Pierre, one of the earliest and greatest of 
the explorers of the interior of North America. His first 
voyage into the west probably began about the year 1655. 

rendezvous (ran'-de-vob), an appointed meeting place of the 
mountain trappers and the yearly pack train from St. Louis. 

River of the West, a fabled river which was said to reach far 
back into North America, and to empty a great volume of 
water into the Pacific Ocean somewhere on the coast of the 
Oregon country. Our Columbia River comes nearest to 
answering the early descriptions. 

Rocky Mountains, spoken of often in early times as the Shining 
Mountains, or the Stony Mountains. A French explorer, 
Verendrye, was the first white man to see their crests. 


GLOSSARY 


325 


St. Lusson, sent by the governor of Canada in 1671 to represent 
the power of France at a great Indian council. At that coun¬ 
cil the land of the Great Lakes was formally made a part of 
the empire of France. 

Santa Fe Trail, a trading route between the Missouri River and 
the old Spanish town of Santa Fe. The wagon route came 
into steady use shortly after the year 1820. 

Sauk (sok), the name of an Indian tribe which finally joined 
with the Foxes in their enmity for the French. In 1832 they 
engaged in one of the last Indian wars east of the Mississippi 
River. 

Sault (Soo) Ste. (Sainte) Marie, the water passage between 
Lake Huron and Lake Superior. 

Sierras, the mountain chain along the eastern boundary of Cali¬ 
fornia. 

Sioux (Soo), the name of a famous Indian tribe dwelling, when 
first known to white men, in Minnesota and westward 
across the Dakotas. They have always been a proud and 
warlike people. 

Smith, Jedediah, one of the most famous of the western trappers 
and explorers. He won the title of “Rocky Mountain 
Smith.” He took over General Ashley’s fur trade in 1827. 

Snake River, a large branch of the Columbia River, rising near 
Yellowstone National Park. 

South Pass, an easy pass through the Rocky Mountains. It was 
first made use of, among white men, by the trappers. 

South Sea, an early name for the Pacific Ocean. 

Sublette, William and Milton, brothers, both among the earliest 
of the mountain trappers, active about 1822-1826. Their 
associates were Smith, Bridger, and Fitzpatrick. 

Sweetwater, a small western river having its source not far from 
South Pass and running east to join its waters to those of 
the Platte River. The Oregon Trail followed it for some 
distance. 

Talon, Jean, an ambitious ruler of Canada, 1670-1671, who saw 
the importance of the western fur trade. 


326 


SPARKS FROM A THOUSAND CAMPFIRES 


Thorn, Captain, commander of Astor’s ill-fated Tonquin, 1810- 
1811. The Indians killed him on board his ship. 

Tonquin, the ship sent by Astor around the Horn to engage in 
the Pacific fur trade. 

Tonty, Henry ( c . 1650-1704), a heroic Italian in the service of 
France; La Salle’s lieutenant, who spent much of his life 
among the Indians of Illinois. He was called “Iron Hand” 
by the Indians, because one of his hands was gone and he 
wore an iron hook in its place. 

Vancouver Island, a large island off the coast of British Co¬ 
lumbia. It was visited often by the ships of traders in search 
of a cargo of sea-otter pelts. 

voyageurs (vwa-ya-zhur', vwa'-ya-zhur), the French term ap¬ 
plied to the employees of the fur companies who paddled 
the canoes for the traders. 

Wind River, a river in west central Wyoming. 

Winnebago (wm-e-ba'go), the name of an Indian tribe, early 
inhabitants of the shores of Lake Michigan. 

Yellowstone River, a large southern branch of the Missouri 
River. The Falls of the Yellowstone, in Yellowstone Na¬ 
tional Park, are among the most beautiful waterfalls in the 
world. 

































































































































































































































































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